


a star in another sky

by neonheartbeat



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Cold War, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Light BDSM, Miscarriage, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2020-02-08 18:04:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 188,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: It's the fall of 1949, and Margaret Carter, in the midst of founding S.H.I.E.L.D., gets a visit one evening that changes everything: however, reconciling is not as easy as it might seem, and this is not quite the man she remembers from the war.





	1. October 14, 1949

**Author's Note:**

> Am I back on my Marvel bullshit? Yes. I am. Friendship on hold with Star Wars, Marvel is my new old best friend.
> 
> Contains spoilers for Endgame, in case you haven't seen it yet.

Her clock goes off, bells clanging like a three-alarm fire, at precisely six in the morning. Peggy Carter rolls out of bed, groans, slams down the latch, stretches, rubs her eyes, and jams her feet into her slippers, padding out into the kitchen and fiddling with the stove.

The flame turned up, the kettle on: she gets her teacup out and slips out the back door, picking up the milk and carrying it back in, putting the bottles into the refrigerator. It's a lovely fall morning, brisk and clear. The milk has stayed cold. It's quite nice and convenient, and she likes things to be convenient.

She sits on her kitchen chair at her kitchen table (the dining room is hardly ever used) and sips her tea with milk, going over the morning paper. The evening one keeps being left at the front and not the back: she's going to have to have a word with the delivery-man about that if it doesn't stop at once.

Howard's face takes up a goodly portion of Page Two: he's working on some fancy what-have-you or other, nothing she can pretend to care too much about until he inevitably calls her on the telephone and yammers her ear off about it. She's already got enough on her plate, what with the construction plans she's got to sign off on today, the trip she's got to make down to the site by Thursday, and the meeting Wednesday she's got noted down neatly in her daily planner, and her thoughts go directly to work. She finishes her breakfast and gets dressed: stockings, sensible heels, a gray suit with a pencil skirt and matching hat. Hair: taken out of its curlers and brushed out, pinned up. Gloves, handbag, briefcase, scarf and pin—and she's out the door, locking up and heading down to the bus stop.

She takes the bus to 23rd and Virginia, and from there walks to work. It's not an ideal situation, sharing space with the Central Intelligence Agency, but until they can get the site up and running it will have to do. _Mend and Make Do_ , she remembers the old posters saying during the war, and smiles to herself as she heads into the imposing building and shows her pass to the guards, passing them, signing in, and heading down to her office.

* * *

 Lunch swings around, and she's once again faced with a sandwich at her desk, alone. She can't very well go out and have a hot meal with the secretaries at the five-and-dime, and it's awkward for everyone when she joins her male peers, so she sits alone, chewing ham and cheese and taking the time to go over more of the building plans.

"Carter?" asks a familiar voice, and she looks up to see Colonel—no, the war's been over for four years, he's just Mr. Phillips now—Phillips, poking his head around the corner of her door. Age has barely changed him at all, maybe another wrinkle around his eyes, but he's as crusty as ever.

"Yes?" she asks, mouth full, and swallows hurriedly.

"I'm thinking we should leave at ten tomorrow to go oversee the new site. I'll drive. That work for you?"

"Oh, certainly. How's the progress coming?"

"Pretty well so far. These new guys seem to know what they're doing." He gives her a once-over and nods. "You oughta wear coveralls. It's not too clean, and I know how you like to be hands-on."

She pretends to sigh. "I suppose the SSR simply can't handle another dry-cleaning bill?"

He chuckles. "Not with all our funds being shuffled around by our Strategic Homeland whatever-it-is."

"Very well. I'll show up looking the very image of Rosie the Riveter. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Uh, Agent Sousa called again." He looks vaguely uncomfortable, and Peggy's heart sinks.

"Did he," she says flatly. "I shall have to call him back, then. Thank you."

"Oh, and I want the updated blueprints on my desk so I can sign off on them after you. Stark make it in yet?"

"Who knows where Howard Stark is or what he's doing," Peggy says dismissively. "No, and I don't think he's signed off on them either. I'll call him and drag him in to have a look; he seems to think deadlines are suggestions."

"You do that. Thanks, Carter." Phillips leaves, and Peggy finishes her sandwich and picks up the phone, dialing Howard's private number. It rings twice, and is picked up, which means Peggy knows immediately that Howard hasn't picked it up: he lets it ring until kingdom come.

_"Stark residence. Jarvis speaking."_

"Hello, Edwin. It's Peggy." She smiles as he blusters in delight.

_"My goodness! Hello, Miss Carter! We haven't heard from you in ages; how are you?"_

"I'm very well, but look—we've got to get Howard into the office to sign off on these blueprints for this thing we're doing, and nobody's seen him all week."

" _Oh, yes,_ " says Jarvis after a moment. " _Yes. One moment._ " There's a distant voice, a conversation that's muffled—he must have his hand over the receiver—and Howard picks up, voice slightly slurred.

 _"Peggy!"_ he almost shouts.

Peggy winces and holds the receiver away from her ear. "Yes, good afternoon, Howard."

_"Is it afternoon?"_

"Yes. It's nearly one. Look, not to be a bother—"

 _"You could never be a bother, Peg_ —"

"Howard, are you drunk?"

_"Maybe. What's going on?"_

"You have to sign off on these blueprints at the office. We've got them all ready. You don't even have to go over them; just get down here and sign the papers."

_"What, you can't just sign 'em yourself?"_

Peggy presses a hand to her face. "No, Howard, I really can't. You and I and Phillips all have to sign off on this together, because we're all founding members. You do remember that, right? Getting authorization from Congress? The _top-secret_ meeting? Founding the Strategic Homeland Intervention—"

 _"That can't be right,_ " he interrupted. _"If I'd founded it, the name would be much shorter._ "

"Can you please," she says stiffly, "just get here and sign them. Please, Howard."

" _Anything for you, Peggy_ ," he says, and smacks loudly through the phone as if blowing a kiss, then hangs up. Peggy sets the telephone back into its receiver and groans, sitting back in her chair and pressing her hands to her eyes.

* * *

 Stark gets there as they're closing down for the night, disheveled and stubbly. He signs off on the blueprints without even giving them a look, and whirls back off into the evening, Edwin Jarvis long-sufferingly looking at Peggy from the front seat of the Rolls-Royce.

She nods at him, and he drives off.

It's not until Peggy gets back to her house that she remembers she never called Daniel Sousa back, and she shoves that knowledge into the farthest corner of her brain, because if she tries hard enough, she'll really forget about it. Just like how she'd forgotten the letters, the other phone calls, the arguments.

 _You're not staying?_ he'd asked, eyes wide and wounded, and she'd said, _no, I have something extremely important to attend to in Washington,_ and he'd said, _more important than us?_

And of course, of _course_ she'd bungled it and looked at him incredulously and said _I think the safety of the country as a whole and working to defend people from threats is far more important than us_ and he had—

Well. They'd fought. It hadn’t been pretty, and she'd come back to Washington: that had been two years ago and Peggy had given up on Daniel. She had loved him, truly, in her own way—but work came first, work always came first because if she didn't have her work she had nothing.

It didn't stop her from feeling horrible about not returning his calls.

Peggy sighs and finishes her dinner, then takes a bath and climbs into bed. Tomorrow's going to be busy as a beehive and she's got to be rested.

* * *

 She spends all of the next day tromping about the construction site in coveralls and boots with a kerchief over her hair, asking questions with her clipboard under her arm and getting Phillips to ask them when the workmen give her sideways looks. It's exhausting, and she bloody well wishes just one man in the world would look at her without confusion or contempt when she's trying to do her job, but in the end she's satisfied with the progress they've made, and they head back to the car at four, open a pair of thermoses Phillips brought along, and spend a good amount of time gulping down tea and eating sandwiches.

Phillips made the sandwiches, too. Pickle and cheese. Peggy doesn't exactly like them, but he is, after all, a bachelor, so she smiles and washes the vinegary taste from her mouth with tea and buckles back in for the long drive home.

He drops her off at her house, waving good-bye in the glow of the new electric streetlights that the street only got a month ago, and drives off, the car rumbling away down the road.

Peggy wipes her forehead and steps inside off the porch, the door shutting behind her. It's seven o'clock and she's exhausted: the sweat of today is clinging to her neck and cheeks and she didn't even put on powder this morning. She can't wait to get into the bath and soak the grime and concrete dust off.

Off come her boots, caked in mud. She heads into the kitchen in her woolen socks, putting the kettle on, and opens the back door. No newspaper greets her, and she locks a frustrated word that is most certainly not ladylike behind her teeth. She must have missed it on the way in: the idiot deliveryman must have thrown it into the bushes or something, and the last thing she wants to do is go rooting around for it right now.

"Bloody hell," she says under her breath. Then, because it makes her feel better, and because she can: " _Fucking_ hell."

There's a tentative knock on the door, _tap tap ta-tap tap_ , and she glowers in the direction of the living room. "Oh, you had better not be trying to apologize after _two weeks_ of this," she spits, quite incensed by this point, and stamps toward the door, furious. She can see a dark silhouette of a man outside, just past the door, and she barks, "I hope you've brought an apology letter, because if I've got to run a rat race to get my evening Times Herald again, I'm going to—"

She yanks the door open, and all words die in her throat.

Once, when she had been very small, her father had shown her a trick. He had laid a table out with plates and glasses, a cloth underneath, then whisked the cloth out from under everything neat as you please, leaving the glasses and cloth standing, and Peggy had shrieked in glee at the sight. "It's inertia," he had explained, "the force that keeps the glasses and things staying still while the cloth is pulled. Do it too slowly and everything crashes to the ground."

That's exactly how Peggy feels: as if the earth under her feet has been yanked sideways, threatening to topple her—as if the only thing keeping her upright is some unseen force she has no name for yet.

Steven Grant Rogers is standing on her porch, and he's looking at her, and he's holding her evening paper: and she must be dreaming, she _must_ be, because how can he be standing here?

"Hi, Peggy," he says, and he's got the most extraordinary expression on his face, as if he's just as shocked to see her as she is to see him.

" _Steve_?" she gasps, clinging to the doorframe.

"Can I—can I come in? Uh, and I think this is your paper."

"You came back," says Peggy, and her knees give out. Steve makes to catch her quickly, and she bats him away, dragging herself back upright and staring at him. "It's been—so long." Tears are welling up in spite of herself, her hands shaking, because this _cannot_ be happening, but it is, it is. "So _long_."

"Yeah. I know." His eyes are wet, too: watery and just as blue as she remembers. "I'm sorry."

"Five years," Peggy says. "Five _years_ —where have you been?"

"It's a long story," Steve tells her. "A really long story."

She gapes at him, and in the silence her teakettle goes off, screeching from the kitchen. "Oh—my tea," she gasps, and turns about. "Yes, get inside, I'll—I'll make you a cup, and for heaven's sake don't disappear while I'm in the kitchen, or I'll never forgive you."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he says as he steps into her living room, and something clicks back into place for Peggy; something that hasn't been in place for a very long time.


	2. October 15, 1949

It's past midnight.

Steve Rogers is sitting in the chair Peggy reserves for company, just under the front window, and she's on the couch, still grimy and dusty in her bulky coveralls, sock feet tucked under her backside. She's afraid to touch him, to go near him: she's still afraid it's a dream and that he's not real, that he'll disappear like cobwebs in the morning. Both their teacups are empty and rimed with stains: the plates on their laps crumby and cold. He didn't seem to mind not eating in the kitchen at a table, which is odd, but she wasn't going to insist.

She's gotten a chance to look at him better in the light inside, and something is _off_ ; he has a different haircut, there's something strange about the way he carries himself, he has a few more lines at the corners of his eyes. His coat's thrown to the side, and he's got on a dark gray suit and vest and white shirt with a tie, which look _good:_ she's never seen him wear a suit like that before. He seems just as uncomfortable as she is. His hands are awkwardly clasped in his lap, he's got his knees together, and he's hunched over forward, looking at her and at the floor as he talks.

Oh, yes—he talks. He talks and talks and talks, apologetically looking up as he catches himself and changes the subject, blathering on, trying very hard to explain what he's _doing_ in her living room after five years without actually saying anything of substance, and Peggy is _tired_. All she's managed to get out of him so far is that he was stuck in the ice in Greenland, and he's vague about how he got out: he tracked her down and found her address from a phone book, then caught a bus over and he's _sorry_ because he knows it's late—

"Steve," she interrupts, and he pauses instantly. "Just. Please tell me _how_ you got here."

"I—" He hesitates, and bends his head a little. She can see, strangely, threads of silver glittering at his temples: he surely hadn't had those five years ago. "I'm not sure if I can tell you."

"Why ever not?"

"It's just—it's very—it's complicated." Steve eyes her again, blue flashing from beneath those absurdly long eyelashes of his, and she swallows in spite of herself.

"I have—I have work in the morning," she says faintly. "I can't just—does Howard know you're alive?"

"No," he says. "No, just you."

Just her? Well, that was a hell of a burden: _Captain America is alive, and I'm the only one who knows._ "Why on earth haven't you rang him?"

"Rang—oh. I don't exactly have a phone anymore." He gives her a little smile, and she feels as if there's some joke she's missed.

"I have his private number. You'll call him in the morning, if he's not drunk—"

"No," he says definitively, and Peggy blinks. "I can't do that."

"Steven Grant Rogers," she snaps. "He looked for you for two years. Two bloody years. He has just as much of a right to know you're alive as I do."

"I understand what you're saying," he tells her, "but—"

"But nothing! You're going to call him, or I am!"

"I'm _still in the ice_ ," he says desperately, as she moves to snatch up the phone, and she freezes, looking at him.

"What?"

"I'm still there. Or, at least, I should be, if it's all the way Banner said it was."

"Who—but you're _here,_ in my living room—"

"Peggy," he says quickly. "Let's say you could get in a car, right now, and go back to when you were—I don't know, say at Camp Lehigh when I was there in '43. There'd be _this_ you, from tonight, and there'd be you from '43, right?"

Peggy has an odd vision of herself in her grubby coveralls staring her five-years-younger self in the face, and nods. "I suppose."

"Right. I've taken that car. There's me, and there's _me_."

Her mouth falls open. "You're talking about _time travel_."

"I can't tell you a lot of the details, because I don’t know how much I can say without compromising the stability of the—"

"You've _time traveled?_ " Peggy gets out of her seat and paces in her socks, mind moving a million miles a minute. "So _this_ you, the one sitting in my living room, _you,_ you came from the future?"

"Yes."

"How far into the future?"

"Uh… you may want to sit down."

"I am not sitting down: tell me—"

"About seventy-four years."

Peggy pauses in her step and stares at him. "Seventy-four years?"

Steve cracks a smile. "I don't look too bad for a hundred and five, do I?"

"A hundred and—" Peggy sits down with a thump, shocked. "You can't be—but then, the serum, the regeneration of the—"

"That's about the long and short of it, yeah," he says.

"But—" She presses her hands to her face. "So, you—the you in the ice right now, I mean, the one who isn't old enough to be my grandfather— _that_ you, when does he get found?"

"In about sixty-five or so years, I think," Steve says. "I have no idea where I am right now, exactly, but I'm alive. Just sleeping."

"Sleeping," says Peggy, and tears well up. " _Sleeping._ Oh, God."

"I know it's a lot—"

She stands up so quickly that she almost knocks over the coffee table. "I was doing _just fine_ , thank you," she snaps, and Steve looks hurt. "I—oh, God, I said my _goodbyes_ to you, I came to terms with your death, we all did: I—I have _work_ in the morning—"

"Building barns?" he quips, trying to infuse some humor into the conversation.

It doesn't work. "I'm working to incorporate the Strategic Scientific Reserve into a new organization that I've co-founded with Howard and Phillips, thank you, and I was overseeing site construction on a top-secret location today _all day,_ so forgive me for looking like a Land Girl on the one day you decide to knock on my door at seven o'clock, Steve Rogers."

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, and he's truly contrite. That doesn't stop Peggy from wanting to slap him. "I'll just—I'll go find a place to sleep. Maybe at the YMCA. Do they have those here? I can't remember."

"You will do no such thing," she says. "You're sleeping here. On the couch. You haven't got any luggage, have you?"

"No, just my nan—uh, what I'm wearing."

"Your what?"

"Just don't scream or anything," he warns her, and fiddles with something in his hand before his clothing _melts_ , morphing before she can breathe into a pair of pajamas and a men's bathrobe.

"What—on _earth_ —"

"Nanotechnology," he explains. "Not everyone's got it in the future, don't worry. And the power cells for this won't last very long. So I'll need to go clothes shopping at some point."

"I am going to take a bath," Peggy says firmly. "And then I am having a drink. A stiff one. And _then_ I am going to bed, and I will see you in the morning."

"Hey, Peggy?"

She pauses on her way to the hallway. "Yes?"

"Thanks for letting me stay."

"Just try to get some sleep," she says softly, both to him and to herself, before heading down to the bathroom.

* * *

 

She does not sleep that night.

She tosses and turns, unable to get any rest at all even though she's bone tired, and finally creeps back out to the living room as the lavender-gray haze of predawn filters through the windows and the streetlights cut out.

Steve is still there. He hasn't disappeared, she hasn't had some hallucination brought on by stress: he's there and solid and real, tucked up on her couch with a pillow under his cheek as if he barely fits, his massive shoulders rising and falling gently under the knitted afghan.

Peggy looks down at him for a long time. The same bump in his nose, the same shape to his eyebrows, the same full lips. It _is_ him, and she doesn't know how the hell she's going to cope with this. She wouldn't even know where to start: it's not as if it's something people regularly talk about. She hasn't got a book on her shelf titled _How to Handle Your Long-Lost Love Coming Back When You Thought He Had Died_. She's not even sure she was really done grieving, if that makes it worse.

 _I said goodbye to you and put your blood in the river under the Brooklyn Bridge,_ she thinks, staring down at him. _I thought I had let you go. I told Howard to let you go._ She's still afraid to touch him, afraid to stand too close; so she stands there until her feet are chilled and her legs are almost numb, just looking at him, until her alarm clangs off in the bedroom and she races back to shut it off before he wakes up.

* * *

 

Peggy leaves him a note before she slips out at six-thirty for work: _food in refrigerator, spare key under mat_. _Home at 6._  She chooses to leave _please still be here when I get home_ unspoken, in the spaces between the carefully-written letters on her ivory notepaper, and tucks the note under the cup on the coffee table.

Work…is a mistake. She gets into the office and all she can think about is Steve: she's on edge and strung so high that she feels like anyone doing anything will make her break into a thousand pieces. She forgets today was the meeting with the Virginia congressmen about the zoning laws and is five minutes late; she snaps at a secretary and makes her cry; she drops her cup of tea in the break-room; she leaves early for the first time in her life, citing a headache.

The bus ride back is surreal: she's never ridden the bus back home at four-thirty before. Sunshine, people walking about, mothers pushing prams down the street: she'd known, of course, on a subconscious and impersonal level that people lived in Washington, but they had all been relegated to background characters, not directly put in front of her eyes like this.

Families. Old people sitting on benches and feeding the ducks on the Mall. Children on class trips, businessmen, lawyers and assistants and secretaries and policemen. She keeps her hands clasped on her handbag as the bus jounces her along, chugging back to her stop and letting her off into the fall air.

She walks down the sidewalk in brilliant October blue sunshine, marveling at the leaves on the street and how vivid they look, at the clouds, at the trees. Even her house, when she comes up to the walk and lets herself in at the gate: the yellow paint and the white trim are pretty and fresh, the door is slightly ajar and there's music floating out from inside.

Peggy freezes in her tracks, her mood doused in cold water. It's a horribly familiar tune, the one that played absolutely non-stop in '45 after the war was over for a full year and no matter where she went she couldn't get away from it—the one that seemed to mock her in her nightmares: _You'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you, or just how empty they all seemed without you…_

She pushes the door open and is greeted by her own wireless radio, piping Harry James out into the living room. Water is running in the kitchen, and she immediately steps over to the radio and switches it off, palms sweating.

There's a step in the doorway to the kitchen, and Steve pokes his head through, looking guilty, her apron wrapped around his waist and his hands holding a dishtowel. "I—hey, Peggy. I didn't know you were coming home so early—"

"Please don't play that song," she forces out, her hands shaking. "I'm sorry—"

"No, no, I'm sorry," he says immediately, looking ashen at the expression on her face, and flings off the apron before helplessly gesturing at the sofa. "Just—sit down. Do you want—I can put the kettle on?"

Peggy sits and takes in a shuddery breath. It wasn't his fault, of course, he couldn't know. "Yes, please. Milk, no sugar."

"Sure." He steps back into the kitchen and she can hear him rattling around in the cupboards, so she takes the time to look around the living room. He's cleaned, which is startling: the room is spotless and the coffee table has been cleared away. She thinks about the mess of dishes she'd been planning to leave for Friday night, and cringes inwardly.

Steve emerges with her tea and sets it on the coffee table in front of her, and she's noticed something else: he hasn't made a single advance on her at all. Hasn't reached for her hands, hasn't embraced her—in fact, the only time he came close was when she'd almost collapsed on the stoop in shock, and Peggy can't even remember if he touched her there. What if he _is_ some bizarre hallucination after all?

"Steve," she says, sipping tea.

"Yeah, Peggy?"

"You, uh. You're…solid, correct?" A ridiculous-sounding question—he's sitting in her armchair and clearly occupying mass, but _time travel_ is on the table and she can't be sure of anything, not even her own eyes. "I mean—you know. I could touch you?"

"You—yeah. Yes, you could, I mean. Do you—do you want to?" His eyes find hers, large and nervous, and she sets her tea down, folding her hands in her lap.

She _does_ want to. She's also terrified to, because if she touches him and he's real, really here and present in the flesh, she's going to have to accept that and then do something about it.

A very small voice in her head she hasn't heard in some time squeaks, _Face it head on. Don't be a coward._

She holds her hand out, and can't stop the trembling in her fingers. Steve swallows, then reaches out, closing his large, warm hand over hers.

It's real. He's real. He's _very_ real, and she stares into his face, and all she can think is, _what are we supposed to do now?_


	3. October 16, 1949

They eat in the kitchen that night, meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans that Steve makes out of the odds and ends Peggy's got stashed in the refrigerator, and it's surprisingly good: she didn't know he knew how to cook.

Maybe she'd forgotten he could. Maybe it's a new skill. She can't remember. It bothers her that she can't remember.

"I don't suppose you can tell me whether or not we get flying cars," she says dryly, gulping down milk.

Steve chuckles. "No. We don't. At least, not yet. But we do get rid of polio. And, uh, the measles. Mostly." He makes a sour little facial expression.

"Oh, there's got to be a story behind this one," she says, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, _man,_ " he groans, dragging his hands down his face. "I don't think I can actually change anything about the future, but, uh, there's going to be these people who are _convinced_ that inoculations are some big government conspiracy to do God-knows-what, and measles comes back in the late teens—mostly in really urban areas because the people have more money than sense—"

"Late teens?" asks Peggy, automatically thinking of shirtwaists and Edwardian skirts.

"Twenty-teens. Like, the new century, teens. I did—I mean, I'll _do_ this thing where I yell about it on TV, and it gets people to kind of stop when it goes viral—"

"Viral? What?"

Steve blinks for a moment, and she can almost see his brain rewinding. "Oh—it just means everyone starts talking about it. It's, uh. A phenomenon that occurs when people use electronics to communicate a lot."

"It sounds like a disease. Going viral." Peggy smiles, and realizes it's the first time she's done so all day. "I hope it doesn't make you break out in spots."

Steve laughs again. "If it did, Tony would be a walking giraffe." Then his face shuts down slightly, goes blank and soft and quiet, and she recognizes that face from a pub six years ago, a bombed-out shell of a building. She doesn't know what to say, so she looks down to give him privacy while tears well up in his eyes and he sniffs slightly.

"This…Tony," she says softly. "I gather he was a friend?"

A wet sort of sob forces itself out of Steve's throat. "Yeah. He was. Or he will be. I… you know, he hasn't even been born yet. How weird is that? I'm sitting here and I remember someone who hasn't been born yet. A lot of people, actually." He scrubs a hand across his eyes and takes a deep breath. "This one friend of mine… she _definitely_ hasn't been born yet, won't be for another forty years. And I know exactly how and where she's going to die."

Peggy wants to reach for his hand, but can't bring herself to do it. "What was her name?"

Steve shakes his head, leaning forward. "Maybe it was a mistake, coming back," he says to himself, so quietly Peggy can just make it out.

"No," she says. "No, it wasn't."

"I haven't changed too much?" His eyes find hers again, and she shakes her head.

"No. Not unrecognizably so, I shouldn't think. Not as much as I have."

"You haven't changed a bit," Steve tells her.

She laughs, short and sharp. "That's what you think."

"I mean, five years," he amends. "People change in five years, but deep down, really, we're the same. Kind of."

"I don't suppose you have money?" Peggy pushes her empty plate away. "You'll have to get a job. Imagine that." She grins.

"I don't mind," he jokes, standing to clear the table. "Gotta do something with my life now, don't I?"

A thought strikes her. "I don't suppose you know what _my_ life ends up being like," Peggy asks.

He shoots her a look on his way to the sink. "I know what your life _was_ going to be. Maybe I messed that up. Or maybe it's how it would have been anyway. Banner said the future can't be changed by actions we take in the past."

"That's comforting, I suppose," Peggy says dryly. "That my actions in life are set in stone and I have no real choice in the matter."

"Aw, come on," Steve says. "It's more like… a path that always ends up at the same destination, like a lake. You can decide to jump over the rocks, or take a nap, or stop for a picnic, but you have to keep going down it to the lake at the end. There's always going to be a lake at the end."

"Mmm," says Peggy, not wanting much to think about this. She crosses over and picks up the dishcloth. "You wash, I dry. I would have moved the boxes out of the other bedrooms and made a guest room, but it's been a busy two years."

"Big move? I saw you'd changed your address from California to here." Steve turns the water on, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and she tears her eyes away from the sight.

"Yes. I—I was temporarily working in the Los Angeles offices."

"Stayed a while for a temporary assignment, huh?"

It will do them both no good if she stays silent. "I was seeing someone."

There's silence, Steve continuing to wash the glasses and plates. He studiously scrubs at a speck of gravy and doesn't look up. "Was it serious?"

"He certainly thought so." Peggy feels a lump in her throat. "We didn't part on the best of terms. I told him I was breaking it off to come back here and work on something important, and he took it rather personally, I'm afraid."

"Oh," Steve says, sneaking a sideways glance. "Was he—was he good? To you, I mean."

"Yes. He was. He was a very decent chap." Why on earth does she have tears in her eyes? "He, ah. He was hurt in the war. Walks with a cane. He felt—he always felt useless, but he wasn't. He isn't. The complete opposite, in fact. I always felt that you—you would have liked him."

"What's his name?"

"Daniel," she manages, and the tears start falling. She tries in vain to wipe her face with the dishtowel, but her hands are full of plates, and she can't. "Oh, I'm sorry—bloody—"

"Sit down," Steve tells her, and she does while he roots around for a handkerchief. "Here. It's okay."

Peggy blows her nose. "I felt the most awful traitor, you know, when I moved back. I never returned his calls. He must think me the worst sort of woman."

"Well, call him back, then." Steve goes back to the dishes. "Tell him—I don't know, that you were busy. End it on good terms."

"I'm not sure it's worth it," she says, sniffling.

"Trust me," he says, eyes gone very distant. "It is. It really is."

* * *

 

He sleeps on the sofa again, and she actually manages to drop off this time, curled on her side in her rickety twin bed with the white-painted iron frame.

She has a nightmare: Howard is trying to get her to move back into his penthouse, and she keeps telling him she can't because the Council knows the place exists—Steve is behind her, and Howard keeps shouting that she's crazy, that she has to move in, that Steve's dead. _No,_ she insists, _he's right here, you can see him! Look!_ She turns, and Steve is gone. She knew it: he's been gone all along, he's _dead_ —

"Peggy!"

Peggy wakes, shaking from head to toe, drenched in sweat: Steve is crouched by her bed looking worried, and she thinks for an inane moment that this is just another part of the dream until he reaches down and clasps her hand in his. "Steve," she whispers, and shuts her eyes. "I'm so sorry. What time is it?"

"About two in the morning." The room is dark, the only illumination from the streetlights, leaking in between her curtains. "I heard you, so I came in."

"I'm sorry I woke you," she stammers, sitting up and clinging to her sheets. It still seems like a dream: Steve Rogers, in her bedroom, in his pajamas. "Bad dream."

"I know all about those," he says softly. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly," she says, unable to keep her hands steady. "I'm sorry. You ought to go back to sleep."

"Peggy." It's so _small_ , just her name, the simplest word with a whole sentence behind it.

"I dreamed you were dead again," she whispers. "That's all."

"Oh. Well, I'm not." He rubs her knuckles with his thumb, back and forth, a reassuring gesture, and she shuts her eyes, allowing herself to relax slightly. "Hey. I'll sleep in here on the floor. That way I'll be here if you—"

"That won't be necessary," she says too quickly, and his face slightly falls, but smooths out into acceptance. "It's just—a bit inappropriate. I think."

"Oh. All right. I'll be in the living room, then."

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you." She lets go of his hand as he makes to walk away, and everything in her body yearns to touch him again, to really _touch_ him, but she can't: can't. It's too much. She'll go to pieces.

He gets to the door and pauses, looking back at her, an outline in black and soft yellow from the lamp on in the living room. "Loving you was like going to war;" he says softly, "I never came back the same."

"What's that?" she asks, touched.

"It's a poem. The author will be born in about, uh, thirty-nine years. I just thought it was—well, I always thought of you when I read it."

"It's lovely. Good and concise." She smiles. "What's his name? The poet?"

"Her name, actually. Warsan. Warsan Shire. She's British, like you."

Peggy finds herself unexpectedly warmed by this: being given the words of a woman poet who hasn't been born yet, who will be able to capture so many emotions in such a short phrase. It's like a gift. "Thank you," she whispers.

"Natasha," he says, so softly that it's almost a breath. 

"Natasha?"

"That's her name. My friend, the other one."

"It's a pretty name," says Peggy, at a loss for how to help. "And I'm sure whatever happens to her—whatever her life will be like, she's going to make the most of it."

"Yeah. She will. Good night, Peggy."

"Good night, Steve." He leaves the door cracked behind him as his footsteps pad back out to the living room and the couch creaks as he settles back in.

She goes back to sleep and does not dream.


	4. November 14, 1949

"Right," says Peggy, making Steve jump from where he's curled up with a book on the chair under the window that's somehow become _his_ chair in the past month. "We're calling Howard."

"But we can't—"

"Look. Hear me out. Howard can keep a secret. He's not an idiot. Your papers are all locked in a vault somewhere in the old War Office in New York, you need a job and money, and you can't very well go about calling yourself Steve Rogers anymore. He knows people who can pull a few strings at the State Department and get you papers, and I don't mind getting involved."

"You—you don't?"

"No. I _was_ a spy, in case you forgot." She crosses her arms. "It'll be a good idea to do it now while people are thinking about the holidays. Less chance of people asking questions. We'll get you in some sort of disguise if we have to, and—I think Howard's in DC this weekend, but if he isn't, I'll arrange a flight up to New York. I'll call before we go."

"If you're sure," says Steve, who looks very nervous.

"Of course I am. He'll probably be distracted by heaven knows what and won't even recognize you. If he does, I'll handle it." She holds out her hand, at a loss for what else to do. "Deal?"

Steve regards her palm and smiles. "All right. Deal." He shakes it.

* * *

An hour later, they've got him disguised: a pair of clunky glasses that do nothing for his perfect eyesight, but everything to obscure the line of his cheekbones; a heavy coat to mask his physique; a hat.

Peggy stands back and gives him a long, hard look. He could be anyone, any man on the street. Nobody is going to recognize Captain America; at least not between here and the bus stop. She breathes a sigh of relief. "All right. Let me get my handbag and we'll go." She's already called, and Jarvis was more than willing to invite her to drop in for a late Saturday lunch—Howard is at home, fortunately.

"You look nice," Steve says, and she waves him off with a smile, but does take a quick second look in the mirror on her way back out of the bedroom. She'd picked a sensible tan belted dress that really did nothing for her complexion, but at least her hat looked good. She touched her lipstick up and hurried back out, gloves on and handbag swinging from her arm.

"Right. Off we go. You do remember the bus, I hope?"

"That thing? Unforgettable," he jokes, and they step out together into the pale sunshine, locking the house before walking down the street.

* * *

Peggy thinks as they walk.

They haven't stepped out together in a month: it would cause the worst kind of scandal at work if anyone she knew ferreted out that the soon-to-be Director Carter, a known single woman, was living with a man at home. Never mind that the man in question was still sleeping in the living room, dutifully looking after the house and making dinner in a peculiar role-reversal that Peggy found herself rather liking very much: the war might be over but certain things didn't change.

The back garden (yard, Americans called it, as if the place was a measuring stick) is thickly screened by trees and bushes, however, so Steve likes to sit out there in the autumn air and sketch when he has the time. Peggy watches him from the windows quite a bit more than she'd like to admit, half because she's still convinced he might disappear before her very eyes, half because he makes a fine picture himself with his sleeves rolled up and a pencil in his hand.

Steve reminds her of his old self sometimes, all cheerful straightforwardness, respectful distance and politely doing all her chores without being asked. Other times, it's like someone else is seeping through: he uses phrases she's never heard before in her life, he refers to people she doesn't know mid-conversation, he's strangely pessimistic at times. It's like having half the man she knew and half a man she doesn't know at all crammed into a body together.

"Are you sure I haven't changed at all?" she asks, before she can back out of it.

He looks down at her in the sunshine and frowns. "Hmm. Maybe a little, now that I've been around you longer. Not in a bad way, though."

"In what way, then?" They get to the stop and wait, sitting on the bench together. The bus ought to come in about five minutes, so they have time for conversation.

"Oh, I don't know. You're a bit…tougher around the edges, I think." He gives her a critical little look. "But you had to be, after the war, so I don't think it's a bad thing."

"You don't, do you?" she asks, looking back down at the concrete under her sensible leather shoes.

"You said you had to fight tooth and nail to keep your place in the SSR when the war was over," he says. "I think doing something like that changes a person, but not in a way that really matters. You know. On the inside."

"Something changed you," she tells him.

"Yeah, something sure did," he says. "And I'm a little rougher around the edges, too, I think. But I had more time to change. You didn't."

The bus pulls up, and Peggy stands quickly, brushing her skirt. "Come on," she says, "we can't be late or Howard will insist his butler drive us back and I really couldn't bother poor Jarvis."

"Jarvis, huh," says Steve, as if he's mulling that one over, though what could possibly be so interesting to him about the name of Stark's butler she has no earthly idea.

They get on the bus and let it carry them off to Forest Hills.

* * *

"Big house," Steve comments tersely as they walk up the drive. The house is truly enormous: Howard had bought it cash from a Mr. Goldstein, and only planned to stay a few years, but that doesn't make it any less imposing. Red brick, white trim, three stories, fine front lawn. It's more of a city house than anything, and Peggy knows it's likely too small for Howard's tastes—he likes flying back to New York for the weekends.

"Now, just remember," says Peggy, her belly turning Catherine-wheels, "don't say anything unless he cottons on. Just be quiet."

"Got it." Steve's eyes are fixed on the front door.

They step up and Peggy rings the doorbell. Jarvis opens it, sees her, and beams. "Miss Carter! And your guest: how very nice to meet you, sir."

"Likewise," says Steve awkwardly, shaking hands with Jarvis.

"Hope you've got a proper tea," jokes Peggy, her heart thumping, "because we're famished."

"Of course, of course, it's all in the library. Mr. Stark is still in his workshop, but he'll be around in a—I say, sir, are you quite all right?"

Peggy whips her head about to see Steve looking rather the color of milk. "You ought to sit down," she says quickly.

"I'm sorry," he says as Jarvis gets him inside and sits him down on a bench in the foyer, "something just—came over me—"

"Don't worry about it one moment, sir," Jarvis assures him. "I will go fetch you a glass of water."

"Thank you," Steve says, and Howard Stark chooses that moment to step into the foyer, grubby from the shop.

"Peg!" he says, smiling. "To what do I owe th—" He sees Steve, and goes almost as white as a ghost, staggering forward and bracing his grimy hand on the silk wallpaper.

Steve just stares back at him, and Jarvis looks from man to man, utterly baffled, until Peggy steps forward. "Jarvis. Please go get a glass of water for my friend and perhaps something a bit stronger for Howard."

"Yes—of course," he says, and disappears down the hall.

There's a horrible, heavy silence in the foyer.

" _Steve_ ," Howard croaks.

"Howard," says Steve. "I—I'm sorry about this. I didn't mean to scare you—"

"Scare me?" Howard takes a few unsteady steps forward. " _Scare_ me—Steve, it's really you?"

"It really is," says Steve, and stands up. "I guess I'm worse at disguises than I thought."

"Holy Christ," Howard gasps, and embraces him with both arms, tears in his eyes. "Rogers, Holy _Christ_ , it really is you. You're alive—but how the hell—"

Jarvis enters with the water and a glass of scotch. "Lunch is in the library," he says politely, back in Butler Mode as he gets the drinks into their respective owners' hands. "Shall I leave you to it?"

"No, I think you had better stick around and listen," says Peggy wearily. "This is going to be a hell of an afternoon."

* * *

Lunch is gobbled down and forgotten about as Steve retells the simpler version of his story. Howard takes it all in stride—even the complicated bits—and listens with wide eyes, his fingers twitching as if he is fighting the urge to write everything down in a notebook—which Peggy has forbidden him to do.

"But how did you get the power to do it?" he asks, when Steve stumbles over an explanation of the machinations.

"You'll find out in about…oh, thirty-odd years," says Steve with a cryptic little smile. "You won't be able to figure out how to do any of it, though, so don't worry about it."

"And these…the Cube, you said that's a, what? Eternity Rock?"

"Infinity Stone. And yeah, it is. Peggy tells me you found it?"

"Yeah. It's been sent off to the desert—New Mexico, we've got a couple people working on it. Found it at the bottom of the ocean when we were looking for you, dried it off, packed it up, sent it out. I never—" Howard chokes up, his eyes damp. "Steve. I didn't stop looking for you. Not till I couldn’t anymore. I want you to know that."

"I know," Steve tells him. "I really do. It's not your fault."

"Sixty-five years," says Howard, shaking his head. "I knew Greenland was big, but—that's a long time."

"Nah," says Steve, waving his hand. "For me, it felt—it'll feel, I mean, like waking up after a long nap. A really long nap."

Howard sits back, dragging his hand across his jaw. "Shit," he says weakly, and gives Peggy a look. "I mean. Wow. So this—these—stones, you said they cause alternate—universes? Other worlds?"

"You do know I  _was_ in the war," says Peggy primly, rolling her eyes.

"Not exactly." Steve takes out a pencil from his pocket and draws a line on a piece of paper. "This is time. All time. One long unbroken line. Right?"

"Right." Peggy and Howard lean in to look.

"So the things that _make_ time, the passage of it, they're these six stones that come from outer space. And I know that sounds crazy—"

Howard snorts. "Pal, two years ago we had to use a gamma cannon to blast black matter out of a movie star and opened a portal to another dimension. Now we're dealing with _time travel_. Nothing sounds that crazy anymore."

"Right," says Steve. "Okay. So the six stones—to give you an idea of how powerful they are, the Tesseract—like I said, that's just one of them."

" _One_ of them," breathes Howard, and Peggy can almost see the gears turning behind his soulful eyes.

"So," Steve mutters, and draws six ovals, circling the line. "You got all six of the stones existing at once, in the timeline. They _move_ time, sort of. Say you went back and took one away, out of where it's supposed to be at the time—you create another, alternate fissure in time, like this—" and he crosses out one of the ovals, sketching a line streaking away from the main one. "It can't support itself, though, and it'll just collapse eventually if the stone isn't returned."

"Are all the stones in place now?" asks Peggy, concerned.

"Oh, yeah," he assures her. "Yes. I put them all back. Bit of a trip before I came back here."

"Why were they gone in the first place? I mean, out of their times?" Howard eyes the paper.

"Uh. We had to take them and use them to…undo something really, really bad that happened," Steve hedges, drumming his fingers against his knee. "But I put them all back, so all the alternate timelines have been erased and shut down. Everything's as it should be."

"So we're not…going to disappear," says Peggy, breathing slightly easier. "Well. I suppose that's a comfort, to know the house won't come crashing down and time itself won't unravel around us. Jarvis?"

"Miss Carter?" The butler steps forward, almost forgotten in the corner, as is the case with most good butlers.

"More tea, if you wouldn't mind. I need another cup for the rest of this conversation."

* * *

"You should be able to use your name," says Howard twenty minutes later, pacing back and forth. "There's at least two hundred Steven Rogerses— _Rogers'?_ —walking around Washington right now, let alone across the country."

"But he'll be recognized," says Peggy anxiously. "Won't he?"

"Peg, let me tell you something," Howard informs her. "I'm famous. Really famous. And when I go down to the corner store with a coat and a hat on to get a wrench, do you think a single person gives a shi—uh, a damn enough about anyone else around them to look up and recognize Howard Stark? No. I get stopped for autographs at premieres and events and big shiny shindigs where I show up in a tuxedo and a Rolls-Royce and the announcer shouts my name."

"If we're being realistic," says Steve, "most of the posters only show my face from the nose down."

"You have a very recognizable chin," Peggy protests.

"Then he can grow a beard and go be a sailor. Might make for a nice change, huh?" Howard grins.

"I could," muses Steve. "What's in right now, goatees?"

"You are not growing a goatee," Peggy says firmly. "If I wanted to live with Robert St. John I'd move back to New York."

"Okay, a beard, then. Just a short one. Not too unruly, you know—"

"You _do_ have to get a job, don't forget," Peggy informs him. "If you show up looking like a sailor fresh off the Newfoundland coast, who's going to hire you?"

Howard snaps his fingers, eyes wide, and Steve looks at him peculiarly, but before Peggy can ask what's wrong Howard blurts out, "The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. That's who's going to hire you. You could grow a beard to blend in for undercover ops in, say, unsavory locations."

Steve crinkles his nose into a little moue of discontent. "Could I just do—I don't know, desk work?"

"You want to do _desk work_?" Peggy can't hide how surprised she is.

"Yeah. I mean, I already worked for SHIELD, back…in the future." He looks tired, and Peggy suddenly understands: he's a _hundred and five_ , and he's done with fighting.

"Of course you can do desk work," she says, shooting Howard a baleful glare over Steve's head. "We can imply you're really there for undercover operations, but you won't have to do a spot of field work at all."

"That sounds good," Steve tells her, offering a small smile.

Howard looks down, thinking. "Now, about the papers. You'll need a birth certificate, a passport. A bank account. I'd offer to open one for you, like I did for Peg, but that might be a little—"

"What?" Steve blinks. "What do you mean, you opened an account for Peggy?"

"Well, it's not as if I can open my own," Peggy explains, as if it's the most ordinary thing in the world.

"Why?"

"It's against the law," Howard says, as straightforwardly as if he was explaining a car engine. "She's not married."

"Jesus Christ," says Steve hoarsely.

Peggy nods, her lips pressed into a tight little line. "I can't get a line of credit opened, either: Howard had to buy me my house. Which—greatly appreciated, but—"

"You're telling me _Howard_ owns your house?"

She blinks. "Well, he gifted it to me, it's not as if he's holding it over my head—Steve?" He's got both hands clenched into fists, and looks as if he might break something.

"Easy, pal," says Howard nervously, exchanging a look with Peggy that screams, _what the hell did I do?_

"I forgot about that," Steve says, thin and strained after a moment. "Sorry. I forgot. I—excuse me." He gets up quickly and heads out of the room, letting the doors shut behind him.

Howard sags in his chair. "I thought he was gonna hit me. I've never been that scared in my life."

"Wait here," says Peggy quickly, putting her napkin down. "I'll be back in a moment."

* * *

She finds him outside on the back portico, gripping the iron railing and staring blindly into the garden. "Steve," she says softly. "It's all right."

"No, it's not," he says, and sucks in a shaky breath. "It's not all right. I forgot. I knew when I woke up, and had to get used to—so much. And so much had _changed_ —now I'm back, and I feel twice as out of place as I did in the future."

Peggy comes up alongside him and leans on the railing. She wants to touch him—to reach out and rub his back, to be affectionate. "So," she says instead, "tell me: when _are_ women able to open their own bank accounts?"

He sighs. "About…ten, twelve years down the road. I think."

"Maybe _I_ was born in the wrong time," she muses.

Steve looks at her: she can see him out of the corner of her eye, just past the blind spot. "You weren't," he says softly. "You're going to be—I shouldn't tell you, but—"

"No. Go on." She turns her head to face him. "What am I going to be?"

"You're going to be a hero," he says simply, and she feels a swell of emotion behind her sternum. "There's going to be hundreds of women who come after you, and they're going to say, 'Look what Peggy Carter could do when the world and the law and all of society was up against her' and they're going to do great things because _you_ were born _here_ and _now_."

"Oh, stop," she says, fighting tears. "I am not."

"You are. But you don't have to think about it right now." He reaches out and covers her hand gently, and he's so warm that all she can think about is his body, frozen somewhere _now_ deep in the ice in Greenland, and she shivers.

"We'd better go back inside," she says, and he ducks his head and follows her in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time for my favorite part of historical fic: HISTORICAL NOTES.  
> -Forest Hills was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the 40s and 50s, mostly because there weren't any restrictions barring Jewish people from owning homes in the housing covenants there.  
> -Robert St. John was an NBC broadcaster from the early 40s. He was known for his goatee. Very avant-guarde for the time period.  
> -Women couldn't open their own bank accounts or lines of credit until the 60s. If you were married, you couldn't open one without your husband signing off on it in person at the bank. If you were single, it was completely up to the judgment of the bank manager as to whether or not he would let you get one. [pterodactyl screech]


	5. November 24, 1949

Thanksgiving has never been Peggy's favorite holiday: it's strictly American-flavored and she usually spends it catching up on paperwork and eating sandwiches alone in her kitchen if she doesn't find herself invited over to Howard's. He usually has some sort of showy, over-the-top party going on where he invites everyone he knows and it's the talk of the papers for a good week, but this year she can't risk taking Steve and having someone like Ingrid Berman recognize him, so they stay home.

She does take the time to clear the dining room table off and set it with her good china, the one that belonged to her grandmother, and the family silver. Her wineglasses are barely ever used and she can't remember where they are, so after rooting around hopelessly in search of them, she just gives up and puts the water glasses on the table instead while Steve checks on the turkey every five minutes.

It turns out that Steve can't actually cook a turkey to save his life, so after they air out the kitchen, he sheepishly fries up all the turkey that can be saved and they have turkey sandwiches with the rest of the food: mashed potatoes, carrots, stuffing, green beans, rolls with butter. She finds she actually likes it more than she thought she would, and once Steve's shoveled down his requisite five or six-thousand calorie meal (really, the amount of food required to keep him going is surreal) they migrate into the living room and collapse onto the sofas, listening to the radio. President Truman is going to make some kind of speech, and Steve wants to hear it.

Peggy couldn't be arsed. She curls up on her side and sighs, comfortable enough to have left her shoes off indoors, and wiggles her stockinged toes. Steve's still been sleeping on the sofa, but she's working on getting the spare room cleared out and the other bed set up for him. His papers arrived Tuesday, the fastest she's ever heard of anyone getting _anything_ from the government, and Howard's been hinting that he might try to pass Steve off as some defected Russian communist to secure him a no-questions-asked job at SHIELD. Maybe a recently-rescued POW. He's not sure yet.

She likes the acronym very much. Steve had blurted it out, and she can't very well change all the letterhead and signage she's already ordered, but it's good and concise and descriptive and makes her think about the vibranium disc that went down with _her_ Steve. Her Steve, who's still frozen in ice, not _this_ Steve, who's older and stranger. Even though they're the same Steve, she still can't quite wrap her head about it.

Anyway, the new papers put his date of birth as July 1, 1910, effectively making him eight years older than he really is—which was necessary: how many thirty-one year old men have silver hair at their temples? Peggy had tried to work out the maths, finally concluding that they were essentially passing off a one hundred and five year old man as thirty-eight when he's supposed to be thirty-one but really is mentally more around forty, and had had to sit down for a moment to process that.

He's been given a new name, too: Joseph Stephen Johnson. He'd insisted on all three of them, and Howard hadn't argued over it at all. "Joseph, for my dad," he'd said, "Stephen for me, and Johnson is a good old boring name."

"I suppose it's better than Smith," Peggy had said. At least she can still call him _Steve_ without raising too many eyebrows.

The radio crackles on, and Steve listens raptly to the Thanksgiving Day address while Peggy lies on the sofa and thinks about the spare room. Really, he should get his own place, but it's not as if anyone is going to rent to someone without a banking history or credit. He's done his part to keep the house tidy, and he's even gone out and gotten groceries: she has no reason to evict him, beyond the lingering fear of being discovered, and that's not likely to happen with nobody from work she knows living in this neighborhood.

They haven't spoken once about… _them_. What they are, what they aren't, what they could or might be. Are they a couple? They're living together, but it's more like roommates, not lovers at all. The extent of their affection has so far been touching hands, usually when one or the other is feeling low, and that's it. Not that she particularly wants to be thrust into a physical relationship this quickly with someone who still doesn't feel like _Steve Rogers_ to her, but it's… oddly disconcerting and also strangely comforting, knowing he's keeping his distance.

Maybe he wants her to make the first move. Maybe this is something people do in the future. Maybe she needs to test him.

"I ought to call Daniel," she says quickly, and Steve looks up, startled out of his reverie.

"Daniel? Oh—the guy you were seeing in Los Angeles?"

"Yes. He'll be home, probably. One moment." She stands, gauging his reaction as she heads into the kitchen and picks up the telephone.

Steve looks…almost worried. He looks down as soon as she looks at him, and his hands clasp together, his back stiff.

Peggy stands back just far enough to peer out into the living room, watching Steve, and dials Daniel Sousa's number. It rings three times, then four, and the line's picked up. " _Hello?_ " asks a familiar voice on the other end.

"Daniel," she says quickly, and Steve's jaw is tight, anxious. "It's me. Happy Thanksgiving. I'm so sorry I haven't called before, but—"

_"I know. You've been busy. Listen, Peggy—or, is it Director Carter now?"_

"The latter, yes." Steve is still tensely hunched over, face expressionless.

_"I just wanted to—I was a jackass. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have kept on calling, but—I missed you. And you were right, you know. Stark wanted you on board for the project and it isn't fair to demand, you know, that you stay here for me."_

"I shouldn't have been so blunt about it, but yes, you're right," Peggy tells him. "I do hope that we can remain friends, Daniel. I would hate to lose a good agent over this sort of thing."

He chuckles through the line, sounding tired. " _That's what we get for trying to date all over the chain of command, huh? First me, then you—big old mess."_

Peggy laughs, and something seems to unfold, somewhere in her heart. "That's _Director_ Big Old Mess to you, Agent."

Sousa snorts. " _Next time you're in New York, send me some bagels. Nobody here can make them."_

"Ah, now we come to it," she jokes, leaning against the door frame. Steve is very still in the living room, in the afternoon sunshine, listening without moving. "You kept tying up my line at the office for _bagels_ , Agent Sousa?"

" _What can I say? I got a soft spot. Cream cheese, salmon…"_

"You've got a soft spot in your head if you think salmon belongs on a bagel."

" _Hey, don't rib me over my bagels!"_

"You have a lovely Thanksgiving, and tell the gang out west I said hello," she says. "I've got to go, the presidential speech is wrapping up and I've a friend over."

" _All right. Bye, Peggy."_

"Goodbye, Daniel." The receiver clicks heavily into the cradle, and she turns to see Steve, still frozen in his chair, looking up at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. "Well, I did what you said," she tells him, walking back into the living room. "Called him up. I do feel better, so you were right about—"

"A friend," he says flatly, and Peggy frowns.

"What?"

"You said I was a friend. You—you're friends with Daniel, too; I heard you say you wanted to remain friends. I—" He looks torn up, and glances away, down at the carpet. "Do you not—is it—is it not the right time? Did I mess up the—I don't want to get in the way of your work, but if you're not—if this is too much—"

"Are you asking me if I want to—if—" Peggy can't quite get the words out. "If we—"

"I love you," he says simply, and _that_ just shakes her to the core, because people don't _say_ things like that, unless it's a Hollywood movie. "I never stopped loving you, Peggy. Not for all that time. Not ever."

"Steve," she breathes, and sort of crumples down onto the sofa, knees akimbo.

"I—it's sad, really," he continues, "because I kept telling people—I was kind of a counselor for a while, after some stuff happened, and I'd tell these people, these people who had lost everything and everyone, I'd say, _you gotta move on, you gotta keep living, you have to move past it._ But I couldn't move past losing you. I never did. How's that for a joke?" There are tears in his eyes, bright and blue and wet, and they're streaking down his face. He shakes his head. "I never did."

Peggy feels like she's been punched directly in the gut, her air all gone, her head spinning.

"If I'm wrong," he says, sniffing and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, "if I came back and you don't—if it's not right for you, if I'm too old, if that's how it's got to be, then that's how it's got to be. And that's okay. I can live with that. I can live my life here, now, just knowing you're around. I'd just like to know, so I can—so I won't be a bother anymore. I can go get an apartment somewhere—"

"There has not been a day," Peggy whispers, "that I haven't thought about that kiss I gave you." Steve stops talking instantly. "There hasn't been a day I haven't thought about you. Not a single day. I couldn't—I tried to let you go. I tried. I really did. But I couldn't."

"So I guess we're in the same boat, then," he says softly.

The presidential address has long since ended. The tinny music playing over the radio to cushion it up against the three o'clock news plays on, filling the room like their words can't. Peggy wipes her eyes and stares very intently at the carpet.

"I don't want you to move out," she whispers finally.

"Oh. Okay."

"It's difficult," she continues, "you know, having you back, especially because after what you told me—I did work out that you're really closer to forty, with the delayed aging taken into account, and I'm twenty-eight. So you haven't seen me for a much longer time than I've not seen you, for one; secondly, you're nearly twice my age—"

"I am not twice your age," he says, smiling. "Twelve years apart, if we're speaking experience and not carbon aging, and besides, I've seen you—" His mouth shuts abruptly, and he looks away, shaking his head.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just—nothing."

"You…you've seen me in the future?"

His eyes find hers. "Yeah. I have."

"When I was older than you, you mean? Or…I _will be_ older than you?" A thought strikes her. "Steve… I die, don't I?"

He looks stricken. "Peggy—"

"I mean, everyone dies, of course, and it's not reasonable to expect I live past seventy—but if you're pulled out in sixty-five years, let's say, that would make it—" she does some quick sums in her head— "twenty-fourteen?"

"I fudged the numbers a little," he admits. "More around twenty-eleven."

"Twenty-eleven, then. So unless you took a few more trips through time to find me, I live up to then, correct?" She's almost surprised at how calm she is discussing her own death.

"Yes," he says softly.

"Then I'd be—" Peggy crunches the numbers again and just sits in shock. "Nine— _ninety_? "

"I come visit you a couple of times," he admits, looking down. "You have photos of yourself and—you have a family. You never talk about your husband to me. I never know who he is."

"I live to be _ninety_?" Peggy is still reeling.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"I'm sure I won't live to be a hun—oh," she says quickly, and glances up at him. "I die while you're living in the future, don't I?"

"Peggy—"

"Steve, just tell me. Everyone dies someday. I'm not going to faint."

* * *

 

Steve looks at her carefully, but finds only attentive curiosity in her dark eyes. "Yeah. You do, Peggy."

She relaxes slightly, looking away: her hands are still curled around the couch cushions, her toes wiggling against each other in their stockings as if to reassure herself she's still present and accounted for. "Ah," she says. "I suppose the wake's a bit dismal. Probably some fusty old funeral home with an undertaker and a—"

"Try St. Luke's Cathedral in London," Steve says before he can stop himself. "Attended by about a thousand people I don't know, with enough flowers to set off an asthma attack if I still had asthma. I'm shocked the Queen herself didn’t show up."

"The Queen?" Peggy looks confused, then delighted. "Oh! You mean Princess Elizabeth gets the throne after all, then! Good for her!"

"Yeah, and lives to be about a hundred," Steve says, grinning.

"At least the monarchy won't be dissolved in _my_ time," Peggy tells him with a little sniff.

"You're not upset I told you?"

"Of course not." She reaches out and touches his fingers with hers, and he has to almost steel himself for it: the sensation of her slender, calloused hands on the backs of his knuckles is a lot, and even though he's gotten used to being able to sense _everything_ in finer detail over the years, some things still catch him out. "How many people get to know how their own funeral plays out?"

It's so hard. It's so hard to sit here in front of her, a twenty-eight year old woman, when he's already sat in front of her, a ninety-four year old woman, and said his goodbyes. "Not many."

"What's wrong?" She leans forward, tilting her head slightly. "You have a look on your face like you're about to climb Everest."

"It's just…this is going to be tough," he says softly. "But I don't have a choice. I made my choice, and I can't go back. The only thing I can do now is my best, and the best thing that I can do is try to start over."

"Is that another quote from a poem?" Peggy half-smiles.

"No," he tells her, "that's something a very old friend told me. Someone much wiser than I was. Come on, let's do the dishes. I'll let you have first choice on the radio tonight."

"Oh, so _generous_ ," she teases, and they head into the kitchen, the tinny radio still singing its heart out into the empty living room.


	6. December 24, 1949

"It's done _what_?" Peggy asks, shivering in her sweaters and thick woolen socks at the top of the stairs to the basement.

"It's conked out," Steve says, from his muffled and awkward position behind the furnace. "It's just not working. Maybe the power died?" He can see that the pipes are dusty, certainly, but nothing is eroded or wet or anything like that. It's just…died, and of course nobody's going to be available on Christmas Eve of all nights to fix it, _or_ the next day, since that's Christmas.

"It's a p-perfectly good f-furnace," she forces out between her teeth. "I'm sure it was working last week."

"Yeah, well," he says, wriggling out on his side. "Time to light a fire and get a bunch of blankets. I'll call someone when they're open again. Sorry I couldn't fix it."

"Not even you can d-do everything," she says, teeth chattering as they go up the steps. "Bloody Nora. And I w-wanted this to be a _fun_ Christmas."

Steve surveys the living room. Peggy really does go all out for Christmas, in contrast to her apathy toward Thanksgiving. The tree is covered in tinsel, there are popcorn strings everywhere, lights, candles, fir tree boughs and sprigs of holly and those celluloid ornaments he'd almost forgotten existed. "Well, we can always huddle up in the kitchen next to the stove," he suggests.

Peggy looks as if such an idea is deeply horrifying to her sensibilities. "Absolutely not. It's _Christmas._ You ought to go wash up, and after that we'll have dinner in the _dining room_ like civilized people. Wear a coat if you have to."

Steve grins. "Yes, ma'am," he says, heading down the hall and into the bathroom they share.

It's not a bad bathroom, and not too small: pale blue tile with coral accents, a sink, a toilet, a shower/bath combination off to one side. He has to admit to himself that he does miss rain showers and Jacuzzi tubs, but this is still better than 1934 and washing out of a bucket by the shared bathroom in New York tenements. _And how many people can say they've experienced both of those?_ he thinks to himself as he strips off his dirty canvas shirt.

It's his designated housework shirt: the one that can get as filthy as it needs to when he's puttering around in the garden or fixing the sink. It had seemed like a waste when he'd bought it, but Peggy had insisted, and it _was_ her money after all, so he'd given in. Between it and the beard that's begun to soften the hard lines of his jaw, he looks completely unlike himself. He's managed to make some odd change selling quick sketches of people on the Mall, which has all gone towards Peggy's Christmas presents, but he starts officially working at SHIELD on January the third, which feels like the universe playing a déjà vu flavored joke of some kind on him, a joke he can't figure out the punchline to.

Steve surveys himself in the mirror as he wipes down with a soapy washcloth. He's lucky: so far the serum has ensured that his body has remained almost exactly the same over nearly eighty years. He's never been a particularly vain man, but it's still something of an odd sensation to look into a mirror and see—well. All of it. Especially since he sometimes feels like's he's still only about five-four and ninety pounds, even after all this time; mostly when he's being very still, or half-awake. Steve wipes another streak of coal dust from his neck, and twists slightly—the streak goes almost to the back of his shoulder, he must have wiped his neck with a dirty hand—

"Oh—"

He jumps, startled, and looks away from the mirror and out the cracked bathroom door to see Peggy, eyes wide above the knit turtleneck. _That's_ when he remembers that one, having your shirt off is as good as naked in 1949, and secondly, that he should have shut the door. "Oh—sorry—"

"No, no—I shouldn't have been creeping about, I just—" Peggy seems unable to tear her eyes away from his shoulders, and he feels like he should hide. "I just—dinner's ready. And I—yes. Anyway." Her eyes finally find his face, and he's sure the flush on her face isn't from the rouge she put on this morning. "Sorry. I'll just let you, erm, get on with—that."

"You okay?" he prods, feigning innocence.

"Perfectly fine, thank you," she says sharply, and patters off in her socks.

Steve shuts the door and turns to look at himself again in the mirror. "Still got it, Rogers," he very quietly tells his reflection.

* * *

 

It gets down to nearly eighteen degrees that night, and they finish dinner very quickly, then huddle on the couch with their Christmas cracker paper crowns on and try to pretend their noses aren't turning red.

"You get to open one gift," Peggy informs him, picking up one of hers from the small pile he'd set aside. "The rest are for the morning."

"So generous," he says, grinning, and picks up one at random, frowning at the weight of it. "Should I shake it?"

"Don't you dare," Peggy tells him, grinning as she unwraps hers, revealing an enameled vanity case. "Oh, you noticed my old one was broken!"

Steve peels the paper off his gift, and has to laugh when it turns out to be a full shaving kit in a leather case. "This some kind of message?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she replies very primly.

"I mean, I guess I could shave when I take vacation time. It's a little itchy." He reaches up and scratches at the coarse hair on his cheeks.

"At least it's warm," Peggy says, wrapping herself in one of the afghans. "I've never been late to work once in my life, so if I get a cold—"

"You know," says Steve, very carefully, "I do run pretty warm."

"Your base temperature is about one-oh-two, if I recall correctly," Peggy says, "as a result of the increased metabolic rate."

"Right. So, I mean, if you wanted to pull a hikers-in-the-Alps, I wouldn't…I mean, I don't want you to freeze." He's glad the beard shields most of his blush, which usually starts at the throat and works all the way up to his eyes.

"Cocoa," says Peggy.

"What?"

"Hot cocoa. I'll make some, and we'll sit on the couch together."

"Oh. Okay." _That's fine, I offered, she's saying no. It's fine._ It doesn't feel fine, especially not when she leaves to make the cocoa and comes back in, taking her place a respectable two feet away from him on the sofa.

"I should have made Howard get me one with a fireplace," she says softly, nose in her mug. Her hands, curled around the ceramic, are slightly bluish about the fingertips, and Steve frowns, setting his own empty mug down on the coffee table and inching closer.

"Your hands are gonna freeze right off," he says. "You want to go get some mittens or something?"

"No, thank you," she says, shivering. "Here, just—"

And she reaches out for him, miracle of all miracles, and takes his big, warm hand in her freezing little ones. "Jeez," Steve says, bringing his other hand up to cup hers and trying not to betray his pounding heart, "you feel like ice."

"You're _warm_ ," she whispers, her eyes fluttering shut in bliss. She scoots closer, determined to get to him, and presses her shoulder to his: sweater to sweater, but the heat seeps in anyway. "Good Lord, I ought to get rid of the hot water bottles and just go to bed with you every n—" She chokes off her sentence, cheeks flaming, and jerks away.

Steve fights to tamp down the lump in his throat. "There's my new career," he jokes, trying to diffuse the tension. "Resident human hot water bottle, Carter residence. I can wear rubber coveralls and tuck myself in the cupboards when I'm not needed. I probably won't fit, though."

It works. Peggy snickers and looks back at him. "We'd have to make you a specially sized cupboard."

"Your hands still cold?" Steve offers a small smile.

"Very." She thrusts them back at him shyly, and he wraps his fingers around them, rubbing and blowing hot air down her palms. They don't touch anywhere other than at the hands: she kneels on the sofa and faces him, hands pressed together at the palms as if she's praying. He can't tear his eyes away from hers. Large and warm, liquid dark: the lashes flicked up just so at the corners. Her hands are warming under his, and she lowers her gaze, half-smiling. "What?"

"What?" Did he make her uncomfortable? Steve averts his eyes.

"You're just—nothing, only—you're looking at me like I'm the Queen of Sheba or something."

"You look nice," he says honestly.

Peggy scoffs. "I've got on about four sweaters and wool socks."

"So?"

She presses her lips together, fighting a smile. "You're incorrigible."

"Can't help it," he says, squeezing her hands.

"I—I did want to apologize for barging in on you in the bathroom. I didn't—" She looks flustered again, and Steve waits patiently. "Well, no. I did know you were in there, didn't I—look, I suppose my curiosity got the better of me, and I—I feel I was being rather invasive and I'm sorry."

"I should have remembered to shut the door," he says easily. "Don't worry about it."

"You didn't…leave it open on _purpose_ , did you?" she asks, eyes fixed on him now, bright and piercing.

"Now, why would I do that?" he murmurs, tilting his head slightly and narrowing his eyes just a little.

Her reaction is very interesting: she turns pink at the nose and her mouth falls open, her eyes wide. "You _really_ are—terrible," she splutters.

"Merry Christmas," he says solemnly, grinning at her. "You know, I think you're blushing so hard you don't even need me as a heater anymore."

"Oh— _you_!" Peggy untangles her feet from under her and huffs off to the kitchen with the mugs, banging around and muttering. Steve presses his own lips together in an effort not to laugh, but she comes back out and marches straight over to him. "Tilt your head back," she demands.

"Pardon?" As requests from women go, it's one of the tamer ones he's heard.

"Tilt. Your head. Back."

He obeys, leaning back until his head touches the back of the sofa, the crisp linen protector there. "Like this?"

"Yes. Now don't move an inch." He stills, and Peggy leans forward, then presses her lips to his forehead gently, timidly, as if she's afraid to be this close. "There," she whispers, warm against his skin. "Happy Christmas."

The place where her lips had brushed him blazes like fire. He shuts his eyes, relishing in it. "We cheated. That's two presents each."

"Yes, well. It is Christmas, after all, and I think some leniency can be allowed." She moves away, smiling to herself, and Steve watches her sit down again, curling up on the sofa. She doesn't make a move toward him again, but that's all right: he doesn't need it. Just knowing she'd made an advance is enough. Knowing she's warming up to him again, however slowly, is enough.

* * *

 

Cold. Cold, cold, cold, ice stretching around him for a thousand miles as he struggles to move.

The iron-barred glass cockpit shield stretches as far as he can see, top to side to bottom: a jail, a prison inside of which he's trapped forever. The icy water is creeping up to his waist, his feet are trapped, he's freezing slowly, semi-conscious: he'll never escape. He can't find his compass. The radio is dead. He has no link to Peggy: he never will again.

The sun fades. He's plunged into freezing blackness, creeping up his waist, his chin, his throat, his—

" _Steve_!"

Steve jerks upright, drenched in sweat and shivering. The Christmas tree lights dance in front of his focusing eyes like sprites past the spare bedroom door, and he can just make out Peggy's face, pale in the dark. "Peggy?" he rasps out, his voice breaking.

"It's me. You were having a nightmare. Shh." She wraps a blanket around his shoulders and fusses with the ends, and he realizes that he'd somehow kicked it off him in the night. "It's all right."

He can't stop shivering. "I was in the ice. I was drowning alive. I—I couldn't find my c-compass."

"Do you want a hot drink?" Peggy switches on the bedside light, flooding the dark room in a warm glow. She's swathed in her flannel pajamas and a robe and her hair is all up in curlers, tied with a scarf: her face clean of makeup. "I can make up some cocoa."

"Yes," he says, closing his eyes and pressing the heel of his hands to them. "I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep."

"I'll be right back," she promises, a hand resting on his shoulder.

* * *

 

They sit on his bed and drink cocoa together, amiably silent. Steve turns the empty mug in his hand when he's done, mind still locked on the vivid image of drowning in ice, unable to move or breathe or feel. _It must have been the cold_ , he reasons, though he hasn't had a dream like this in at least two years.

"It's nearly five in the morning," Peggy says, breaking his thoughts. "I suppose we ought to open the rest of the presents."

"Oh. Right. Christmas." Steve rubs his eyes. "I kinda ruined it, huh?"

"You did no such thing," she tells him firmly, and presses her hand to his back, rubbing gently. Even through the layers of bathrobe and pajamas, the touch is like a dull heat, spreading through him, chasing away the chill. "I promise."

"Thanks," he says. "Don't let me be a wet blanket."

"Never in a million years," she informs him. "Now let's go have a good Christmas, and for heaven's sake, remember to call someone to repair the furnace."


	7. January 25, 1950

"Hey, Mr. Johnson! Close the door quick, it's freezing!"

Steve dutifully shuts the door, smiling at the shivering secretary behind the desk as Peggy steps in quickly and takes her woolen hat off. They're still sharing space with the CIA until the new base is completed—probably around May, Peggy keeps telling Steve, and he doesn't seem to mind it as much as she does.

Even with his light brown beard, unrecognizable as Steve Rogers, he's _still_ handsome, and the secretary blushes as he offers her a shy smile. "Sorry, ma'am," he says, taking off his hat. "Whew, I'm going to turn into a snowman if I don't look out." It's hardly a funny quip, but the secretary explodes into peals of giggles anyway as if he's the funniest person she's ever met.

Peggy pretends she doesn't care a bit about the secretary as she walks on down the hall. "Agent, thank you for making sure I didn't slip on the walk outside. I meant to ask—how are you blending in?"

"Just fine, I think, Director," he says respectfully, trailing slightly behind her on his way to his desk, which is on the way to her office. "Everyone's very nice."

"I'm glad to hear it," she tells him, stopping as he reaches his desk, at the end of an open-floor row of them. Three across, six deep: all stocked with typewriters and desk lamps. "With your background, I'm glad we could offer you a job."

"Thank you, ma'am," he says, giving her a nod before sitting down in his chair and pushing on the dummy glasses to look at the files on his desk. "Much appreciated."

They had ended up going with the POW story: Steve remembered a blockade outside Stalingrad in the winter of '44 that he had helped get past, Howard had decided that was as good a story as any—therefore Joseph S. Johnson was a war veteran and an ex-POW, and he now had all the paperwork to prove it. Nobody questioned his beard, and nobody questioned what precisely the _real_ job of a brand new agent would be, especially not one hired so quickly.

Peggy nods at him and goes into her office, shutting the door and sitting down to catch up on her work. There are more checklists to sign off on, and more paperwork to slog through. It takes up the entire morning, and by lunch Phillips is in her office again.

"I don't suppose you've seen this Communist nonsense?" he barks, agitated as he waves a paper.

"What, the Chinese again?" Peggy looks up.

"No, the Russians." Phillips slaps it onto her desk and she frowns, then picks it up. The headline reads _ALGER HISS CONVICTED OF PERJURY—GETS FIVE YEARS._ "I've got about five letters from higher-ups demanding do I know anything about Hiss and are we in a position to engage in an operation in Russia. We're not, of course, but if I say no…" He scoffs. "Well. Someone'll accuse _me_ of being a damn Communist."

"Lord," says Peggy, looking at the paper. "Chambers admitted to perjury on the stand! How on earth did they convict Alger?"

"Some nonsense about a typewriter. This Nixon fellow seems to be a real hard-nosed jackass of a Congressman. Stood up and accused the Secretary of State of blasphemy right there in the trial." Phillips snorts angrily. "If Alger Hiss is a Communist, I'm Snow White. They're claiming the Soviets are infiltrating the CIA, the government at every level. The world's going nuts, Carter."

"I suppose there's always a new threat," she muses, turning the paper over. "Why on earth are we expected to engage with Russia?"

"God knows," Phillips says. "But if we're strong-armed into it, you're going. I don't trust anyone else."

"Sir, I really couldn't. I have work to do here—"

"There is nothing you can do here that I can't handle," he says brusquely. "And to be frank, I scare the hell out of half the office. What's that new kid's name? Johnson?"

Peggy freezes. "Joe, you mean? And he's not a kid, he's nearly forty."

"Yes. He got a background in any espionage?"

"I—" Peggy blinks. There's no way Phillips has recognized Steve: he's walked past his desk every morning without a glance at him. "I'm not sure. I'd have to ask. I know he was a prisoner of war near Stalingrad—"

"Stalingrad," muses Phillips. "Right. Good enough for me. Put him on watch or something."

Peggy fights to not make a face. "Crikey. You can't mean you suspect Joseph Johnson of being a Communist."

Phillips scoffs. "Of course not. I mean he might have some knowledge about how Russians do things. Him, Bernard from downstairs, and that other guy who came out of Moscow, the defector—what’s his name?"

"Alfred Smith?"

"Yeah, used to be Drago Ivanovich or something like that, didn't he? Anyway, they're all going to be valuable assets in the event we _do_ get ordered to perform some counter-espionage on the Russians, so make sure Johnson knows that." Phillips scratches the back of his head. "I can't get it out of my head, Carter. You're sure we've never seen Johnson before?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, the picture of mild interest.

"I don't know. Something about his…nah," Phillips says, waving a hand. "It'll come to me. Never mind." And just as brusquely as he'd come, he departs the office, leaving Peggy slightly shaken and looking through the blinds out at the hunched figure of Steve Rogers, hidden in plain sight, tapping out memos on a typewriter patiently as snow falling.

* * *

"You said I wouldn't be in any more combat," he says that night at home, tense and standing by the curtains.

Peggy grimaces. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't think—we've got this back and forth now with Russia, and anyone working in the offices who has had even marginal contact with Russians is going to be asked to pull their weight about it. I'm afraid if you don't, you'll likely be written up as a Communist." Steve lets out a breath and puts his hands on his hips, head down. "And if that happens," Peggy continues, "your identity is absolutely going to be exposed. Publicly. Everywhere."

"Shit," he says under his breath, and shoots her a sideways look.

She has to half-smile. "Indeed it is," she tells him. "Anyway, you're to report for physical assessment next week. I do hope it won't be difficult to pass."

"Why would I—why would it be difficult?" he splutters.

"Oh, you know. Aging, all that, does quite a bit to a person—"

"'ll have you know," Steve says, eyes narrowed into blue slits, "that I'm still very much at peak physical condition, Director Carter."

"Well, SHIELD will be the judge of that." She raises an eyebrow, stepping back into the kitchen under the pretense of more tea, but really just to get herself alone for a moment because the way he had growled out _peak physical condition_ really should not have made her knees go weak, but here she was anyway.

She pours herself another cup and sips it very slowly, trying very hard to think rationally. She's undeniably…drawn to, _attracted to_ , this Steve who still isn't quite her Steve, and it feels…natural, but with enough strangeness to it to make it something she is still tentative about exploring too deeply. She's been able to compartmentalize, as she always does: go to work, smile politely at him when he's Joe Johnson, go about her day—then the moment they both occupy the same house it's as if all the professionalism goes out the window.

His shoes are neatly lined up at her door. His shirts are in the guest room. His toothbrush is in her holder. He's gently, gently worked his way back into her life, given her every opportunity to say _no,_ to push him out, and she hasn't done it once. What does that say about _her_?

Peggy stares out the back window, at the slushy snow a foot deep, and tries to center her thoughts as the blustering January wind blows about the corners of the snug house.

* * *

As a director, Peggy ends up having to observe Steve in the physical assessment.

It's…quite something.

"Jones, put your _back_ into it!" bellows Phillips, shaking his clipboard as Steve effortlessly lifts the poor man over his shoulder and throws him to the ground as if he's nothing in the hand-to-hand combat portion. "Jesus! Carter, are you seeing this?"

"I certainly am," she says, pretending to be amazed. "Johnson! That's enough, thank you."

Steve steps back dutifully, offering a hand to Jones, who stands up rather groggily and wavers. Peggy has to hide a smile: Jones has always come off as something of a swaggering arse, and she's never really liked him. The black eye he's sure to develop is going to be something indeed. "Yes, ma'am," says Steve, "sorry, ma'am."

"Where the hell did you learn how to do that?" barks Phillips. "In a prison camp?"

"Yes, sir," Steve says, with just enough terseness to his voice to make Phillips slightly embarrassed. He wipes his forehead with his arm, making Peggy look very quickly back down as the fabric of his undershirt inches up _just_ enough to expose his flat, hard stomach.

"Right. Sorry, Johnson." He checks his list again. "You passed your physical with flying colors, you're an excellent shot, you have twenty-twenty eyesight. In short, I see no reason why you shouldn't be in the field."

"Phillips, if I may have a word," says Peggy quickly, and Phillips frowns but acquiesces, stepping back and facing her so she can say whatever it is without being heard by the two men on the padded mat. "I've had a look at Johnson's records and I believe he may still have some—problems, you see, that could crop up if he were to return to Russia."

"Combat fatigue, you mean," Phillips muses. "Well, he looks as healthy as a horse to me, besides the beard, of course, but that might come in handy on your missions."

"If I'm to be sent to Russia with Johnson," says Peggy, her stomach turning flips, "I really must insist he—he be given a full psychological evaluation. I can't have someone on my six freezing up in a delicate situation."

"Hold your horses," says Phillips, "nobody's going to Russia just yet. But I get your meaning." He sighs. "I'll recommend the evaluation."

"Thank you," she says, and turns back around to see Steve having a pleasant conversation with Jones, who's still clutching his nose. "Johnson, you may hit the showers. Jones, report to medical and get a steak on that eye."

"Yes, ma'am," they echo, and walk off in separate directions.

* * *

"It'll be easy," Peggy tells him when he comes into her office and shuts the door behind him to give her a stack of files. "All you have to do is convince them you've got combat fatigue. Not bad enough to get you fired, but bad enough that you can't go to Russia with me."

"Well, I was thinking," he starts, "what if I _did_ do…you know, _one_ mission? Just for old times' sake."

She blinks. "I thought you didn't want to see any more combat—"

"No, no—I don't. I mean, I didn't. Not after—but, anyway, maybe something small would be all right. It's not quite on the same scale as the stuff I'm tired of doing, if you catch my meaning." He shrugs. "And… if you're going, I want in."

Peggy drops the file on her desk with a thud. "I don't need protection," she says tightly. "I've learned how to look after myself, thank you."

"I didn't say you did," he protests, glancing up at her. "I—I meant that I'd like to think of us as a team, if not—"

"Carter," says Phillips, poking his head in and startling them both. "You have that letter from that Senator about the grant? Can't find it."

"Yes, it's here," she says, digging through the stack on her desk and handing it over to him.

"Thanks." He peers at it. "I expect you told Johnson about his eval?"

"That's why I'm here," Steve pipes up.

"Good. It's nothing personal, Johnson. Director Carter just wants to make sure you're completely healthy and fighting fit in the event of a mission." He nods and steps out, engrossed in the letter, and Steve turns back to Peggy.

"Completely healthy and fighting fit, huh?"

"Oh, stop it," she chides, embarrassed. "It was the only thing I could think of, and anyway you hadn't told me you'd changed your mind."

Steve shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Can I make it up to you?"

"Yes," she tells him, "you can go fetch me a sandwich from the cafeteria as soon as you're done putting these old files back. I don't expect I'll be free for another four hours."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve says with a grin, and steps out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -It's Red Scare time! The Alger Hiss trial is really interesting, if you want to give it a look over on Wikipedia. He was the only lawyer to ever be disbarred and then re-admitted to the Massachusetts Bar, and he maintained he was innocent until he died at the age of 92.  
> -Oh, Steve. You just can't NOT get antsy. Someone put this old man back in his nursing home.


	8. April, 1950

The warehouse outside the north of Moscow is imposing: massive and gray with a huge red star across the door, faded characters in Cyrillic splashed across the lintel. There's still snow on the ground, and it's frigidly cold; Peggy's thick parka is dusted with frost.

Beside her, Steve, in a knit cap and thick beard, hunches down, fiddling with his map. "This is it," he says softly, his breath smoking out into the snow. "One of them, anyway."

"I count two guards at the door and a sniper on the roof," she says quietly. From their vantage point, they're invisible: two ghosts in a sea of white snow. "God, I wish you'd failed your evaluation."

"Why?" He's methodically screwing on a silencer to his rifle, which is painted white to hide the color against the snow. "You'd have missed me."

"Oh, bugger off," she says, peering away from her binoculars. "I don't want to get you killed. I only just got you back."

"I'm not gonna die, Peggy," he says firmly, and raises the rifle to his shoulder, sights down the barrel, and fires.

There's a punchy little _zip_ and the sniper falls from the roof, tumbling off backwards and into the unseen back of the building. Both guards don't see him, and Peggy sighs. "Phillips is going to hate that. He wanted us to get in unnoticed."

"Well, it's a tranquilizer, not a bullet, for starters, and secondly, I'm not letting you get shot, so he can take it up with me." Steve slings the rifle over his shoulder. "Do your thing."

Peggy sighs and carefully applies her lipstick before walking out across the snow, waving cheerfully. " _Privet_!" she calls, beaming. " _Privet!_ _Mne ochen' zhal', ya poteryalsya._ _Vy mozhete mne pomoch'?"_

The guards lower their weapons and one of them smiles, eyeing her up in a way Steve's not too happy about. " _Kuda idet takaya milaya dama_?" asks one.

He can't make out Peggy's response, but there's some back and forth before she kisses one guard, then the other. He'd known that was going to be an option (seriously, knockout lipstick? What was this, Dick Tracy?) but seeing it in person is truly something else. Some emotion he hasn't really felt too often curls up around his belly and heart, something hot and angry and possessive. He fights it down, watching as she drags them to the doors and signals to him, alerting him: _all clear_.

He jogs up, the rifle bouncing on his back, and helps her open the metal door. She wipes her mouth with a handkerchief carefully and tucks it into her pocket. "Easy as pie," she chirps, beaming up at him. "Let's go get those files."

Right. The files. Steve follows her in, focused on the dim room. File cabinets stack haphazardly along the walls, molding furniture he's not sure _wasn't_ taken from the Tsar's palace thirty years back, icons and gilded crumbling frames and paintings. It's a treasure trove of stolen artifacts, seized from the erased nobility under the guise of redistributing to the proletariat.

"They should be in here…" Peggy yanks open a rusty cabinet and begins to rifle through the papers, frowning. She's wholly absorbed, and Steve turns to shield her, sidearm at the ready. The minutes tick by agonizingly, and he waits, watching the corners of the room.

"Found it yet?" he prompts, eyes flickering back and forth automatically. There's no movement, but something _feels_ strange, as if he's being watched. There's no way anyone knows they're here: this mission came directly from the Department of Defense under about four different layers of secrecy.

Steve suddenly realizes two things at once, and his heart sinks into his gut.

First: he doesn't know _when_ Hydra had started infiltrating American defense systems.

Second: if he doesn't know when Hydra started weaseling into American defense systems, _someone might know they're here._

"Peggy," he says sharply. "We need to go."

"I've only just—" There's a slip of paper, and she turns, looking vaguely annoyed. "Lord, you're as jumpy as a sinner in church. Sweet Dreams keeps them out for hours; it's a new formula—"

"Let's go," he spits out, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Something is wrong, and he can't place out why: he just knows that once he gets her back to the safe house near Zelenograd they'll be fine.

They hustle out, Steve on edge and bringing up the rear, and they make it to the main hall, toward the massive door.

They're twenty feet away from it when the bullet rips through Steve's left arm and ricochets off the concrete floor.

" _Shit_ ," Steve spits, and Peggy stops, turns and looks at him in confusion, and he realizes that she's an open target, she has the _file_ on her—

She pulls her sidearm. "Behind you—"

Without a moment's hesitation, Steve drops, and she fires, the shots echoing in the huge building. There's a soft scrape and thump behind Steve, and another shot silently whizzes through the air, the only report a soft _zip_.

Peggy jerks, clutches her abdomen, and goes down like a sack of cement.

" _Fuck_!" Steve rolls to cover her, knowing full well his first order of business is to go after whoever is shooting at them. Her parka is full of blood, and he rips it open to see a welling pool of blood and gore directly to the left of center. Everything in her pockets goes clattering to the floor. "Peggy. _Peggy._ Stay with me, okay?"

"Arm," she gasps, and Steve pats at both of hers: did some shot hit her in the shoulder?

"Where? Where in your arm?"

Her lips are still moving. "No. Steve. _Arm._ His—metal—" She coughs, and strains to make herself understood. "Behind—you—"

Steve whirls, and a metal arm that's horribly familiar and yet _unfamiliar_ comes swinging down, whirring within an inch of his nose. It's like something out of a nightmare: the red star emblazoned on the shoulder gleams like fresh blood, the man in black from head to toe, hair still cut short, masked and goggled.

_Oh, fuck me._

The only thing within reach is the tube of Sweet Dreams 102. Steve dodges, snatches it up thoughtlessly, and delivers a spectacular kick to the Winter Soldier's gut, which sends him to the ground. He gets back up again, giving Steve almost no time to react.

"Not again," he grunts as the metal fist cracks into the bullet wound. Peggy is still twitching on the ground, and Steve finds himself in a conundrum: he can kill Bucky Barnes, saving Peggy, or he can try his best to snap Bucky out of it and let Peggy bleed out on the concrete.

He chooses neither. Another series of blows delivered to the Soldier's throat sends the man reeling, and Steve whips open the tube, smearing the lipstick across his mouth. _This better work_ , he thinks, and turns to face the man. "Hey! Buck!"

The Soldier brings himself up and stops short, hands flexing and chest heaving. " _Eto ne moye imya_ ," he says, low and muffled by the mask.

" _Snimi etu masku,"_ Steve says, his Russian not too great.

One hand reaches up, as if dragged on a string, and the mask and goggles flop free, revealing—

"Barnes?" Peggy chokes from the ground.

Yes. Barnes. Steve's heart thuds. He's gone harder in the face, but his jaw is soft, his eyes still wide and blue. "Hey, pal," he says, inching closer.

" _Ya tebya ne znayu_ ," says Bucky, eyes flickering from him to her. He doesn't seem able to stop himself from recognizing Peggy. "C-Carter?"

Steve never stops advancing, hands out. "Sure you do. You understand English, don't you?"

" _Nyet ne znayu,"_ he spits, eyes wide and looking terrified at his own contradiction. " _Nyet—"_

"It's okay," says Steve gently, and the Soldier snaps in a panic. The metal arm comes up to strike Steve in what's sure to be a skull-destroying punch, and Steve dodges, seizing him by the wrist and dragging the other man's face in close to his. He plants a firm kiss on Bucky's mouth, and he goes tense, rigid, then collapses, limp, over Steve's shoulder.

"Oh, my God," says Peggy feebly as Steve carefully lays Bucky out on the concrete. "Oh my _God_ —"

Steve wipes his mouth with the back of his gloves. "He'll be okay," he says, hurrying to crouch by her. "For now, anyway. Let's get you safe to the house, okay?"

"It's Barnes," she mumbles as he lifts her in his arms. "Barnes. He was dead. Has he—time-traveled, too?"

"No," says Steve, grief clenching his heart as he leaves his former best friend splayed out on the cold floor of a warehouse. "No, he's been here and alive all along. It's a long story."

Peggy's wheezing slightly. "Go back—get him—"

Steve shakes his head as they make it into the snow. "I can't. I can only carry one of you, and you've been shot. He's probably got a handler who's gonna show up any minute now, and I can't afford to lose you both."

"Steve," she rasps as he slogs through the snow. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me too," he says, and tears trickle down his cheeks, freezing in his beard like diamonds. "Me too, Peggy."

* * *

The safe house is a rundown little apartment where they will wait for two days, or until someone from SHIELD comes to extract them.

Extract, Steve thinks ruefully as he lays Peggy out on the cot by the stove and begins to strip her out of her clothes. Like a diseased tooth, or pus in a wound.

"You know, you've been shot too," she tells him, pale as milk as he unbuttons her stained woolen shirt and exposes her torso.

"I have advanced healing. You don't. Lay real still for me, okay?" He takes the hot water off the stove and dips a cloth into it, sanitizing it as best he can before using it to wipe off the blood. "This won't be fun. I'm going to need to see if you've sustained any organ damage."

"I'm familiar with the process," she says thinly, and Steve notices a brown scar on the other side of her abdomen.

"When did you get that?" He rolls her gently to the side, searching for an exit wound. There's not one, which is both good and bad. Good because the bleeding will be more easily controlled: bad because the bullet is lodged somewhere inside her.

"Forty-seven," she says as he sets her back down on her back. "Fell on some rebar; not nearly as glamorous as being shot. Which I have been, before, mind you. Back of the shoulder. No more strapless evening gowns."

"Yeah, I bet you just look awful in them," he quips, reaching for the little forceps. "Okay. Sorry I don't have any anesthetic. Time to go looking for Mister Bullet."

She takes in a breath and nods. "Give me something to bite on so I don't scare the hell out of whatever neighbors are on the block."

"I think the block is abandoned, but here," Steve tells her, undoing the leather strap on his watch and settling it in her mouth. "Bite on that. Good?"

"Mmm," she says, teeth sinking into the leather.

"Good." Steve takes a deep breath and starts prodding open her wound, digging through with the forceps, and Peggy is dead silent, trembling under his hands as he rinses the fresh blood away and keeps probing deeper. He forces himself not to look at her face: he has to focus on the task at hand, to disassociate, to compartmentalize. Put everything away; become a creature of reason and method. Get the bullet out.

After what feels like hours, the forceps clamp down, and he pulls it out gently, letting it ring on the cheap plate he pulled out of the cupboard. It's in one piece, thank God, and flattened slightly: it was lodged up against her ribcage, which might be broken, but Steve can't tell without an X-ray. "Done," he says, and Peggy exhales hard. "I'm going to clean it and bandage you up nice and stiff just in case your rib is broken."

He ventures a glance up at her face and wishes he hadn't. Peggy's as white as a sheet, sweating, and the leather watch strap is soaked with saliva. Steve reaches up and takes it out, and she shudders. "Sorry about the strap," she tells him faintly.

"Don't worry about it." He digs the bandages out of the first aid kit. "Uh, I'm going to have to take your brassiere off."

"Go on, then," she says, and he carefully rolls her to the side again, unhooking the back of the thick cotton bra and slipping the straps down. He can see she does indeed have two little brown scars on the back of her right shoulder, and once he's got the strap off that side, he rolls her to the other, pulling the whole thing away. "I'm going to bandage you from the shoulders to the waist and just make it so you can't twist. It won't be too tight." _Don't look at her breasts. Don't look at her breasts. Don't—_

He kind of has to, to get her bandaged properly, so he steels himself and winds a long strip of linen from her right shoulder, down past her right breast, and to her waist. There's plaster of Paris in the kit, but that won't go on until he's got the bandages in place. She's shivering in the cold air, both from the shock and from being exposed, so he tries to work quickly, strip over strip down across her torso until she's firmly encased in bandages. Then he gets the plaster out, and mixes it up with the water from the stove until it's at the right consistency. He spreads it over the bandages with his hands, taking care not to hurt her, and when it's finally dry, Peggy's able to sit up, white-faced but steady.

"Breathe deep for me," he instructs, and she does, hesitant but firm. "Good?"

"Good," she says. "Don't suppose I can have my shirt back? This place is like an icebox."

"Oh, right," he says, picking up the shirt. "Here." He drapes it around her shoulders, and she huddles into it.

"We have to talk about Barnes," she says after a moment.

"I'd rather not," he tells her, wiping his hands clean with a rag.

"Steve. He's been alive for _five years_." Peggy shifts slightly. "What do you know about this?"

He takes a deep breath and crosses over to the stove, messing with the burners and dumping some canned soup into a dented pot. It won't heat evenly, but he couldn't care less: they both need food. "Not too much," he says, guarded.

"You know something." Peggy pulls her shirt close.

"Yeah. I do." Steve picks up a spoon and starts to stir the pot, methodically, slowly. "He, uh. He was taken by Hydra, if you remember. Before he—before he fell from the train."

"I do," she replies, straightforward.

"They put something in him—something like what Erskine gave me. It…enhanced him, but they didn't have any Vita-Rays…" Steve tries to gather his wandering thoughts. "He fell from the train. The…either the Soviets or Hydra got him, I can't remember—but he's brainwashed. They're going to try to erase his memory, freeze him in a cryogenic chamber, use him for assassinations—I won't find him until about twenty-fourteen."

"And you didn't think to mention any of this to _me,_ the director of SHIELD?"

He's startled at her sharp tone. "No. It's—I can't change the future. I—"

"Of course you can't. Not _your_ future. But you can come back and change mine, can't you? I'm going to have a different life because of you… maybe a lot, maybe a little…" Her lips are draining of color, her eyes fluttering.

"Peggy—"

"You came back and… started… something _new_ ," she whispers, and crumples back down to the cot.

Steve crouches by her and strokes her hair out of her face. "Hey. Stay with me, Peggy."

"He's your friend," she whispers as he pulls a scratchy wool blanket over her. "You have to find him."

"I don't know if I can," he admits, tears in his eyes. "He's not—I had to understand, when I found him again. He wasn't the old Bucky. He—"

"Because," she forces out, "it had been too long then. But if you find him… _now…_ "

Steve can't quite breathe, as if the bandages he'd plastered onto Peggy are suffocating him. If she's right… if he can change _this_ reality, then he has a chance to get Bucky back. To get him back _whole_ and safe and sound.

"I'll think about it," he says. "You need to get something hot to drink. Sit up for me."

"I'm tired," she mumbles.

"I know. Come on. You can sleep later." He gets an arm around her back and lifts her up, then holds a cup of hot water to her lips. "This is the worst tea you'll ever have, but it'll help the shock."

Peggy sips it and makes a face. "If I survive this—"

"You will," he says quickly.

"I wish you'd move back in." Her eyes are glazed with the effort of staying conscious. "I miss you. Quite a bit, you know."

He'd gotten an apartment near downtown DC, which had certainly made the commute less complicated, but living alone was… lonely, strangely. He had enjoyed having someone to talk to at the end of the day. "I miss you too," Steve says. "A lot, Peggy. Stay awake for me, okay?"

"Trying." Her eyelids flutter down, then force themselves back open with an effort as she gulps at the hot water. "Steve. We've got to find Barnes. Got to…bring him home…"

She can't stay awake. Steve scrubs at his eyes furiously. He's already radioed in on the secure line, and he can't do anything else for her now. "It's okay, Peggy. I'll—I'll bring him home. You just get some sleep. I'll save you some soup."

"Home," she repeats, lighter than air, and drifts away, her eyes closing in her pale face.

* * *

 

The Asset wakes with a jolt on the concrete floor of the warehouse, sitting up immediately and assessing his surroundings.

The targets are gone. The information has been taken. His mask is gone, too, but he finds that on the floor in short order, then vacillates on whether or not to put it on. He decides putting it on will result in being beaten for deception, and leaves it on the ground.

Failure. He's _failed_ , and he is not supposed to fail: he is supposed to be perfect. He will be punished for this failure severely.

So he waits. He kneels on the frozen floor, and waits for his handler to return and extract him, as he always does.

An hour passes, and Hydra agents fill the warehouse, giving him a wide berth. He does not answer to them; he answers only to his handler, who appears in no short time, boots thumping on the floor.

" _Activ,"_ she says crisply. " _Otchet o missii."_

He hardly sees her. The faces of the escaped targets are still floating in front of his mind's eye: a woman he's sure he knew from somewhere, a man he's not sure he knows at all, but who seems vaguely familiar. "I…" Too late, he realizes he's spoken in English, and his handler tucks her gloved hand under his chin, making him look up at her.

"You are confused, _kotenik,_ " she says gently, in perfect English. "Yes?"

" _Da_ ," he says, blinking up at her. She's very pretty, with high cheekbones, full lips, and blond hair pulled back snugly under her white fur hat. The Asset notices this in the way that he notices snow on the ground, or wind conditions. One finger swipes across his mouth, and she sniffs it, frowning.

"A drug," she says. "Did the little capitalist cat give you a kiss?"

"I don't remember," the Asset says. It's true, he can't: whatever he's been drugged with has left him groggy. He does remember a scuffle, but it was with the man, not the woman. He decides to switch back to Russian. Maybe they won't beat him too badly. " _Obe tseli sbezhali. Mne ne udalos'. Ya podchinyayus' distsiplinarnym vzyskaniyam, Tovarishch Belova."_

"Very good," she says. "You are honest today, _kotenik._ Stand up. I will take you home."

 _Home._ The word sends a tingle of fear down his spine: _home_ is where he is beaten and put into the chair and he does not want to go into the chair. He does not want the chair. He—

He stands, obedient, and follows his handler out of the warehouse as snow begins to fall, sticking to his cheeks like tiny, cold kisses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Rough Russian translations:  
> \--Peggy and the guards: "Hello! Hello, I'm lost, can you please help me?" "What's such a pretty lady doing out here?"  
> \--Bucky and Steve: "That's not my name." "Take off the mask" "I don't know you." "No I don't. No--"  
> \--Belova and the Asset: "Asset. Mission report." "The subjects escaped. I have failed. I submit myself to disciplinary action, Comrade Belova."  
> -Ask me about my unpublished Yelena Belova/Winter Soldier fanfic that I've been hacking away at since 2015. Rarepairs unite, I Am A Coward, etc etc  
> -If you suspect someone's broken a rib, do NOT attempt to plaster them up yourself. Steve is a professional. Call 911 instead and don't move the injured person.


	9. May 2, 1950

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This chapter contains our first hunt of smut. Ah, at long last.

"I'm fine," Peggy protests weakly, swatting Steve's nervous hands away as she sits up on her own in the infirmary. "I've got it, thank you, Johnson."

Steve nods tightly and looks around to distract himself from Peggy, white-faced and disheveled in a hospital gown, still recovering from the cracked rib. The infirmary at the new location is sparkling new, cutting-edge: orderlies and nurses and doctors running to and fro in their new pale-green uniforms, the SHIELD logo on every wall and file and patient paper. Peggy was resilient, but very lucky to have had this waiting for her when they'd been flown back in that cargo plane.

He doesn't like thinking about that ride. Every moment took him further away from wherever Bucky was, and every second it seemed Peggy was going to breathe her last: rasping and choking in pain. It had lasted far too long for his liking.

"Agent Johnson," says a nurse, poking her head in to the curtain that separates his side of Peggy's bed from the rest of the beds, "Director Phillips is here to see you."

Steve straightens up a little, aware of how he must look: run ragged, dark circles under his eyes. He's not even sure he's showered more than once since they got back: it was maybe a week and a half ago, but the dates were all classified— "I'll step out."

She nods, and pulls her head back. Steve squeezes Peggy's hand, and she nods at him before he leaves the bed, stepping into the hallway.

Phillips is standing there looking drawn and tired. "She doing okay?"

"She's a tough one," Steve says. "Doctor says another week of bed rest and she'll be cleared for desk work again. Might be a few months before she can go into the field."

"God," says Phillips. "I insisted on it, too." He pulls a hand across his face, and Steve's touched: his affection for Peggy is a little fatherly. "You tell her whatever she wants in return, I'll get it for her."

"I'll do that, sir."

"And look, Johnson—" Phillips shakes his head. "That file you two extracted was vital. Plenty of information in there about Russian espionage tactics and a couple drafts of some kind of machine I'm having Stark look at. Ought to get us on even footing for a while. You two may just get a medal."

"Thank you, sir. Director Carter was wondering—well, I don't know if you read our debrief transcripts."

"I have not yet," replies Phillips. "What's she wondering?"

"There was a man," says Steve, heart pounding. "A man with a metal arm, dressed in black. He was a Soviet assassin, and he's the one who shot the Director after he shot me."

"You were shot?" Phillips asks, baffled.

"Not badly—a graze," Steve explains quickly, not wanting to draw more attention to himself. "But the Director says she recognized him from the war. Says he's a, uh, Sergeant Barnes?"

"Barnes?" Phillips goes pale. "She said Sergeant _Barnes_? You're sure, Johnson?"

"Yes, sir. James Buchanan Barnes." He waits.

Phillips is quiet for a moment. "Sergeant Barnes went MIA in 1945 during a classified mission in the Alps," he says. "If he's alive, and the Soviets have him…" Phillips presses his mouth into a stern line. "I'll see what I can find. Might have to call in a favor or two with the CIA."

"Thank you, sir," Steve says. "I know she'll appreciate it."

Phillips turns to go, but looks back. "You did a stellar job, by the way, out there. Comported yourself very well on your first mission. I'd like to move you up to a regular field agent, if—"

"I'd—" Steve hesitates, his throat catching. "I'd rather, uh, wait until Director Carter's recovered, sir."

"Of course. I understand. You two make a hell of a team." Phillips shakes his hand and walks off down the corridor, and Steve watches him go, then ducks back into the curtains shrouding Peggy's bed.

She's inside. She's got her gown off, and a nurse is changing her bandage: in short, she's nude except for the hospital-issued briefs, and Steve goes bright red. " _Oh_ —"

"Bloody Nora," she wheezes, covering herself with the sheet on one side. Steve turns around, ears on fire, and tries to compose himself.

"Would have knocked, but, uh, curtains—"

The nurse is frazzled, looking up at him. "You can wait outside, Agent Johnson—"

"No, it's all right, he can stay. As long as he keeps his nose in the curtain." Peggy sounds dry and a little amused, but Steve's blood is pounding in his ears as his brain catches up to what he's just seen. His memory, unfortunately perfect, draws the picture for him.

Her figure is. It's. It's something. Creamy smooth skin, full breasts with wide pale-pink nipples, trim waist, muscle in her thighs— _God_ , he thinks, trying to stave off his dirty thoughts in a panic, _she's in a hospital bed and all I can think about is her breasts—_

"All right, done," says the nurse, and there's a bit of shuffling before she steps out and Peggy snorts a little. Steve realizes he hasn't moved from his spot, nose in the curtain.

"Johnson," she says gently, and Steve ventures a turn of the head, a peek through his half-closed eyes. Thank God: she's got her gown back on, but one of the shoulders is slipping down. "What did Phillips want?"

"Uh." He can't exactly tear his eyes away from that curve of skin. "He, uh. Wanted to, um." What the hell did Phillips say to him? He can't remember. "Congratulate us on the mission. And, ah." _Focus, Rogers._ "He says he might call in a favor and—and try to get some intelligence on the Asset." That does the trick: his distractions are gone and he's honed into thinking about Bucky. "He also wants to give me a promotion to becoming a full time field agent, but I told him to hold off until you were better."

"Do you want to?"

"What?"

"Become a field agent. We could use your skills." She tugs her gown up absentmindedly, and he inwardly groans. "Of course, if you don't, that won't be a problem. You can go on doing desk work. I wouldn't blame you, seeing as you watched me nearly die on your first—"

Steve doesn't even stop to consider or think: he's leaning across the space between them and pulling her into an awkward embrace. Awkward because he's sideways to her, at a right angle; because his nose is stuck in her hair, which still smells like airplane engine fumes; because her hands come up to embrace him back. One of his arms winds up across her chest, and she doesn't seem to care, just turns her head into his neck and lets out a soft little breath. "I don't ever want to watch you almost die again," he says softly, "but I can't stand not being with you. I can't, Peggy."

"Did you—do you—want to move back in?" she breathes, hot down his neck. "I know you've just settled into your flat, but—"

"Yes," he says, low in the back of his throat, and of all the things—her _nipples_ go hard against his forearm, poking through the thin fabric of the hospital gown and his sleeve. Peggy squirms slightly.

"Oh, ah—"

"But I—we can't." He releases her; he's embarrassed that he's made her have a reaction she can't control or hide. "We—we're not married—"

"Do you—" Peggy goes crimson, looking at the bed. "Do you _want_ to be?"

"Be what?"

"Married, you goose," she says. "I—we can do something small at, I don't know, a courthouse. Get the legalities out of the way. We don't need a huge to-do—"

"Did you just _propose_ to me?" he asks, shocked.

She's clearly flustered. "I—I may have, what of it—"

"I don't think—" Steve's heart is somewhere in his throat, and something like panic is stirring at his gut. "It's not. Not a good time to ask. I mean—we got shot together, we're going to be—you know, closer, and I—I'm sorry I hugged you—"

"Oh—" Her face goes pale again, the color receding and leaving two red marks on her cheeks. "No. I see. I—my emotions, I suppose, got away from me—"

"I just want to make sure, you know, if you _do_ want that, you still want it when. When we. You know. Haven't almost died." He still can't quite get a breath in. "Is that—is that all right?"

"Yes," Peggy says, unable to look at him. "Yes—it's all right. Perfectly reasonable, I should think."

"I, uh, I should head home," Steve says, suddenly feeling like if he spends another second in here he's going to combust. It's only a five-minute bus ride: he can hold out that long. "I'll—can I bring you anything?"

"A decent pair of socks, if you wouldn't mind," she tells him, dark eyes flashing up to meet his before looking away again. "And a good cardigan. It's… nippy in here."

He's too afraid to ask if she's purposely being crude. "Sure thing," he says, and stands, patting her on the hand uncomfortably before making himself leave.

* * *

Steve bursts into his apartment, barely making sure he's locked the door before stumbling to the bedroom and collapsing on the bed, yanking his fly apart and down with one hand and grabbing for the K-Y jelly he keeps stashed in the nightstand.

He knows this is gross, and weird: he can't help it. He still reeks of unwashed clothes and sweat and the tang of blood and thermite clings to his skin, but there's no time to shower right now: everything in his body is screaming for release and this is the only way he can get it.

_Peggy, slipping the gown off, letting him touch her, letting his hands glide along her soft skin, her shoulders, her tits—_

Steve slicks his hand and slides his fist from tip to base with a strangled moan. It's too much, it's not fair—she'd asked him and he'd panicked and _why had he panicked_ —

He can't stop thinking about the fact the he'd almost lost her again. He can't make his mind stop flickering over, switching over to Bucky: the terror of losing him again, having to work out his identity and get him rehabilitated all over again—

_No. Shut up. Tits. Think about—_

—Peggy's body, crumpling to the floor after the Winter Soldier—

— _God dammit, can I just focus on one thing for once in my—_

The telephone rings. Steve jerks his wet hand out of his pants with an angry noise, then shuffles into the kitchen with his pants around his knees to pick it up with his left hand. "Hello?" He hopes he doesn't sound too breathless.

" _It's me_." Peggy's voice comes over, firm and clear. " _I was wondering if I caught you."_

"Uh. Yes, you did. I mean, I'm at home." He shuts his eyes, cringing.

" _Good. Would you be able to bring me a book or two? I'm so sorry to be a bother."_

"Sure. I can do that."

A pause, heavy and waiting. " _You sound a bit out of breath. Did you just get home?"_

Oh, God. "Uh…no, I've been home for a few minutes. Just, uh. Doing…some personal things before I, um, showered."

Another pause. " _I… oh. I see."_ Her tone indicates that she very much _sees._

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. She's going to think he's some kind of pervert, he's never going to be able to face her again as long as he lives, he might as well pack up and head back to 2023 because what is the _point_ of—

" _Steve?"_

"I—yeah?"

" _I'm…I'm in a booth, you know. The nurses let me stand up and hobble over to it. Entirely soundproof, just down the hall from the beds. And it's a secure line. They can see me, but they can't hear me."_

He frowns. Why is she telling him this? "Okay…"

Her voice when she speaks next has a bit of a catch to it. " _Are you…you're in the kitchen?"_

"Yes." He shifts his weight slightly. What's this about?

_"Did I catch you with your trousers down?"_

Steve chokes. "Y-yes," he stammers, "you did."

" _Tell me about it. What—I—"_ She sounds just as tentative as he feels, but he knows her face is probably a perfect mask of professionalism. " _Paint me a picture. Just tell me what you've got on right now, where you're standing."_

Steve's throat goes very dry suddenly. "I… I'm wearing those gray wool pants. The ones from surplus. And, um, my long underwear shirt, under the wool one. The—I'm not wearing any shoes. I'm standing in the kitchen, by the phone and the desk I have for writing down stuff. And—" He hesitates, knowing this means crossing a line they can't get back over, ever. "And… I'm using my left hand to hold the receiver, because my right one is—it's—"

" _Go on."_

"It's wet," he forces out, half-shocked at his own boldness. "With, uh, with a lot of K-Y."

Peggy's intake of breath is a crackle of static. " _And what's your hand doing, Steve?"_

"Nothing," he says quickly. "Right now, I mean. It—I was—" He can't say it, _can't_ say it. "You know," he finishes lamely.

" _Yes, that I think I do._ " She does something that brings her mouth closer to the receiver, and he shuts his eyes, trying to pretend he's right there with her. " _Your—are your pants down right now?"_

"They are," he says.

" _Could you_ —" She sounds almost shy. " _I'd like to listen. If that's—if that's all right—"_

"Oh, God," says Steve, and jams the receiver between his chin and his shoulder, using both hands to shove his trousers and underwear away from his cock. "Yeah. Yes. That's—that's all right—"

" _Are you, erm, doing it now?"_

For answer, he slips his hands down his cock and lets out a soft noise, not wanting to scare her. "Yes," he gasps when he can speak again, trembling all the way down. "Jesus, Peggy—"

" _You sound—it sounds as though you like it,"_ she whispers, and he has a mental image of her pressed against the glass of the telephone booth in nothing but her thin gown, those _breasts_ of hers pressed flat against the glass, and it nearly sends him over.

"You h-have," he pants, desperately trying to get hold of himself, "you have n-nice—breasts."

" _I—do I? That's good to know."_

"Really—really nice," Steve manages, clutching the back of the chair with his left hand as his right speeds up. "I'm—I shouldn't— _aahhhh_ 'm _sorry_ —"

" _Don't be,_ " she says. " _These gowns really leave nothing to the imagination, and I expect your adrenaline was alr—oh, crikey."_ Her tone changes instantly. _"Phillips is coming—I've got to go, I'm so sorry—"_

The click of the receiver echoes through Steve's ear a millisecond after he starts coming. He drops the phone, bracing himself with his hand on the chair, and comes all over it, making as much noise as he wants with nobody to hear him. It's _glorious:_ he's reminded of the first few times he let himself touch himself once he'd finished getting used to his new body and how bright and clear and sensitive everything felt, and he breathes through it until everything he feels from his knees to his belly has ebbed away.

He's just dazed enough to not hear the phone ringing again, and he picks up on the third ring. "H'lo?"

It's her. Of course it is. " _I'm so sorry. I—I shouldn't—are you all right?"_

"Fine," he slurs, and sinks down to his knees on the linoleum, leaning against the cupboards. "Don' worry 'bout it."

" _Was it—it was good?"_

"Yeah," Steve says, resting his head against the wood behind him. "Really good. Sorry you missed it."

She laughs, bright and full through the line. " _Next time. Don't forget my books."_

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and she makes a pleased little sound before hanging up again.


	10. June, 1950

"Fantastic," says Phillips, throwing a paper onto Peggy's desk. "I suppose you've heard?"

"I do own a radio," she says, peering at the paper. _KOREA: WAR BREAKS OUT!_ greets her, splashes across the headlines.

"I'm telling you, these goddamn Communist puppet states can't leave well enough alone. Next thing you know, they'll be invading America." He stabs a finger down on the paper. "China _and_ the Soviets battering down on the United Nations. Unbelievable. I'll bet you eighty percent of Americans couldn't even point Korea out on a map."

Peggy sighs and rubs her temples. Why is there _always_ another war? "I don't suppose the Department of Defense is demanding another mission be carried out?"

"Not yet." Phillips shuts her office door and looks at her warily. "There's been a sighting."

"Of… the Soviet, you mean. The assassin." Peggy raises an eyebrow.

"Yes. The man you identified as Barnes." He rubs a hand across his jaw. "Someone in a deep cover position near the 38th caught a glimpse of him in one of the skirmishes. I thought it was a mistake, but the agent insisted he had a metal arm."

"Then—what can be done?"

"Nothing officially, not yet." He sighs. "Military manpower's been in the shitter since '45, but our intelligence forces are doing just fine. Talk about a blindside. And we're trying to strong-arm Congress for funds, but God knows when that'll come through."

"I'm sure we'll pull together," Peggy tells him. "So we really can't do a thing about our ghost story?"

"Not officially, no." He gives her a shrewd look. " _Unofficially_ , though, you may be able to arrange something. The agent wouldn't have any backup or support during the mission itself, of course, and if they were caught, they'd be denounced by the United States government."

"You're saying I can't go?" Peggy frowns.

Phillips grunts. "Carter, you're a twenty-nine year old woman. I'm not your father. I'm not telling you what you can and can't do. I trust you're fully aware of the risk?"

"I am."

"Good. Have Johnson go with you."

Peggy blanches. "I really—"

Phillips silences her with a finger, brandished like a gun. "He's a good agent and he cares about you. I like him."

"I like him, too," she says offhandedly, then flushing scarlet when she realizes what she's said. Phillips doesn't seem to mind, and gives her a little knowing grin.

"He reminds me a little of—well. Anyway. You best get packing."

"Yes, sir," she says, still red, and shuts her eyes as the door closes behind him.

* * *

 

"You're sure your ribs are healed?" Steve's rushing from closet to bed to pack his bags, and Peggy has to smile at his uncurbed excitement. "Really sure?"

"Yes, I'm all clear. Really." She tugs on her sturdy field boots from her spot on the dingy carpet in Steve's flat.

They haven't discussed marriage again. It's not as if it's off the table—at least, it doesn't _feel_ like it's off the table, and apart from a few quick touches on the arm at work they haven't engaged in any intimacy whatsoever—certainly nothing like that phone call, which they haven't even really _talked_ about.

Peggy presses her thighs together momentarily and shuts her eyes. That _phone call,_ the one she keeps playing over and over in her mind. She could have kicked Phillips in the chest for interrupting her. Steve's breathy gasps, the way his voice had cracked: she had _missed_ the pivotal point and when she'd called back he'd been sated and sleepy, talking in a low, liquid tone that made her want to melt right there.

God, she hates this. Hates having him _just_ out of reach; hates the fact that he hadn't pressed moving back in; hates that the damned secretaries are still smiling at him every time he walks in the door in the mornings. Hates that getting herself off had become, instead of a routine to help her get to sleep sometimes, suddenly tied to whether or not she was currently replaying Steve Rogers' desperate little _you have nice breasts_ in her mind.

Marriage was—well. She had offered rather rashly, he had said _wait_ , and that was what they were doing, wasn't it?

"You okay?" Steve's looking at her, and she swallows, realizing with some delighted horror that there's nothing stopping her from marching over and kissing him right now. She could strip down stark _naked_ and there'd be nothing in her way at all, nothing to prevent—

"I'm fine," she says, shoving that idea out of her mid. "Just lost in thought. We're going in blind with no leads on Barnes. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Of course," he says absently, tucking his last shirt inside the bag. "I know where he is."

"What? How?" That's something interesting to take her mind off her inner thoughts; she leans forward and pays attention.

"Because I've seen a classified file containing his past assignments, in the future," he explains. "It came out of the USSR, and by the time I'd seen it, it was pretty old—but I remember he was deployed between May and September of 1950 to a facility near the border between North and South Korea. The Soviets loaned him out as a gesture of goodwill to the KPA."

"Loaned him out," Peggy repeats.  _Loaned him out._ As if the man is a pair of shears, or a lawnmower. "For covert purposes, I assume. Is he any good at intel?"

"I don't think so. Mostly assassinations." Steve looks bitter and straps the bag shut. "I know where the facility is. They're keeping him in stasis, mostly. They'll let him out for a couple field missions, but not many."

"So we've got a chance of extracting him," she says, crossing the room to pick up her own already-packed bag. "Have you got the first aid kit? He might not come quietly."

"Yes. I thought of that. Double everything, just in case." His eyes go over her, concerned and blue, and she turns her face away so he can't see her sigh. "I've got the transportation locked down, too. All we have to do is be at the airfield at Kaesong by July first."

"Your new birthday," she says, trying to joke, but it falls flat. "I'm sure this is going to work."

"I hope so," he says, looking very distant. "Because if this goes screwy, I don't know what I'll do."

* * *

 

After the longest flight of their lives, curled up in a cargo plane with their field bags under their heads, Steve and Peggy are dropped off at near Seoul in the dead of night. They rush for a hangar, keeping low to the ground with the plane engines roaring in their ears, and make it to cover unseen.

"What's our cover story again?" Steve quizzes her, tucking his chin into his chest as he gets out a compass.

"Reporters," Peggy says instantly. "I'm a journalist from the Post. You're an artist who comes along to sketch out, ah, the invasion."

"Remember if we run into any KPA troops, it's not an invasion, it's a defensive maneuver against defectors and traitors." He zips his jacket up. "I thought it would be warmer."

"It's along the same latitude parallel as Virginia. And it's not that cold, it's only about sixty degrees." Peggy slips on her gloves. "I don't speak any Korean—"

"I do," he says, settling his kit cap on his head. "How do I look?"

Peggy grins. In the dim light of the moon, he looks as unlike a soldier as she's ever seen him. "Good. Very artistic."

"Thanks. All right, let's get out of here."

"Where did you learn Korean?" Peggy trails along behind him as they dodge into the woods, tromping up a ridge. Steve's worked out the location, and he's set on it like a hunting dog on a scent.

"From a doctor I know. Knew." He waves a hand. "Helen. She was nice."

"Nice, was she?" Peggy's not winded yet, but the terrain is rather hilly. Her thighs are burning by the time they reach the ridge and start to descend down its back side.

Steve snorts. "Oh, very nice. Smart, too, she had a brain like you wouldn't believe. And she was really cute—she had this silky black hair, and—"

"Steven Grant Rogers," says Peggy indignantly as they regain their footing at the bottom of the ridge, "you're trying to make me jealous."

"Is it working?" He squints at her in the dim light.

"Bugger off," she says, but can't hide the smile in her voice. "How much further have we got?"

"Couple miles. Pace yourself." He falls into an easy stride, and she walks along beside him, step by step, over the uneven ground.

* * *

 

By the time they reach their destination, a large concrete bunker-type building, and huddle down behind underbrush for cover, Peggy's legs are aching and she envies Steve's stamina: he doesn't even seem to have broken a sweat. "Okay," he says, peering through the dark, "I see the warehouse. He'll probably be guarded by a couple of Soviets, maybe a handler or two, and there's probably going to be some KPA guys inside."

"What's the plan of attack?"

Steve chews on his lip and thinks. "You don't have any grenades, do you?"

"Not something I normally carry along in my disguise bag," she tells him. The sweat on her forehead has cooled, and she shivers.

"I was thinking—cause a distraction, get everyone to leave the building. Killing someone'll be seen as an act of American aggression, and we don't need that." He frowns. "All I've got is a Colt 45. Maybe—"

Beams of light sweep across them, outlining Steve's profile and washing his face with light, and shouts come from the bunker: " _Umjig-iji mala! Jungji!"_

Peggy goes very still and Steve grabs her hand tightly before Korean soldiers surround them, shouting and brandishing guns. "I'll do the talking," he says quickly, and turns, hands up. Peggy follows suit. " _Ulineun jagga ilppun-ibnida,_ " he says awkwardly.

One man, probably a higher-ranking officer, though Peggy has no idea, steps forward and jabs a finger at Steve. "Writers?" he demands, in accented English. "Journalists?"

"Yes, we're journalists," Peggy says, hands still up and shaking. She's not armed, except for the lipstick and a penknife. "This is my—he's an artist—"

"English?" demands the officer, pointing at her.

"British," she says.

" _Nan migug-in-iya,_ " says Steve quietly, and three rifles point in his direction at once. " _Naneun…_ uh, _haebang jeonjaeng-ui won-in-e chungsilhabnida."_

The officer laughs. "We will see," he says, and gestures. One of the men lock Peggy's hands behind her back, another grips Steve by the arm. " _Geudeul-eul an-eulo delyeogasibsio. ulineun uli dongmaeng-gug-i malhaneun geos-eul bol geos-ibnida."_

* * *

 

Peggy sits, tied to a metal chair on a concrete floor, and bitterly wishes to God she'd never recognized James Buchanan Barnes in Moscow.

Another blow hits her in the face, and she spits out blood, shaking her head as the demand from the officer comes again, in English: "Why are you here?"

"We are writing a story for the Post," Steve says, tight and furious from across the floor. He's been tied down to a chair facing her, and she can just make out his cap through the tears in her eyes. "She's the writer. I'm the artist. If you don't believe me—"

Another punch to the gut, and Peggy tries to catch her breath. She's sure she's bruising, and she's been singled out as the target of abuse because Steve's more likely to cave if his female partner is being harmed. "He has sketches," she wheezes, when she can breathe again.

"In my bag," he says quickly, and nods at his field bag. "You can see for yourself—"

"Americans," says a Russian-accented voice, gentle and female. The officer steps back. Steve looks up in confusion as a woman steps out from the shadows: she's dressed in black tactical gear. The overhead lamps cast a halo around her head, shining off her blond hair, and Peggy's struck by the face. It's high-cheekboned, full-lipped—a face that could have been wearing Dior or any fashion houses' designs, a face that could have made thousands working in Milan. The only mark on her is a faint line from upper lip to nose, indicating—what? A scar? The woman speaks again, this time in rushed Korean, and the officers leave the bunker, leaving the prisoners alone with her. She turns back to Steve and Peggy, and smiles. "You are Americans, yes?"

Peggy can't find the strength to insist she's British. "Journalists," she forces out. "We got lost—"

"Yes, you were lost. Now you are found." The woman gives her a cool little once-over, and Peggy has the distinct feeling she's being judged. Her eyes flicker over next to Steve, and she advances. "You…you are something else, aren't you?"

He stiffens in his chair. "I don't know what you mean, ma'am—"

The woman laughs, a bright little giggle, and squats down directly in front of Steve, looking up at him. "Oh, I think you know. No matter. It is your own business, is it not?" She pulls the Colt revolver out of his bag and looks at him with a piercing expression, silent.

Steve glances over at Peggy and she sees, for the first time in quite a while, absolute terror. "I'm just an artist—"

"Yes, I see your little drawings," she replies, pulling the sheaf of papers from the bag and flipping through them casually. "Very good. You ought to draw me sometime. Would you like that?" She smiles.

He returns her look with a cold, hard gaze. "I'll draw you right now if you untie my hands, ma'am."

The woman laughs again. "Clever. You are like the trickster, like Koschei the Deathless. Is this then your Marya?" She indicates Peggy, who is rapidly beginning to feel extremely annoyed.

"I don't know that story," Steve says.

"No? I shall tell it to you. Ivan Tsarevitch wed the warrior princess, Marya Morevna. She tells him one day she must go to war, and to not open the locked door in their home, in the basement, dark and cold." The woman puts a hand on Steve's knee, and he visibly swallows. "Ivan could not resist the temptation," she continues, "so he went down and opened the door, and inside he found Koschei, chained and starved. Koschei begged Ivan for water, and after twelve buckets of drinking he had his magic back and was free at last: he tore his chains and was gone, like _that—_ " and here, she snapped her fingers, making Steve flinch. "Koschei sought out his revenge on Marya Morevna, and Ivan chased him down, but Koschei caught him fast and killed him, throwing him into the sea. His sister's husbands brought him back to life and told him to get a magic horse from Baba Yaga, and when he did, he was able to kill Koschei –then Marya came back to Ivan, and all was well."

"That's a nice story," says Steve, sounding strained. "I'd rather be Ivan."

The woman laughs again. "No, you are not Koschei, are you? Perhaps you ought to meet him." She turns her head slightly to the side, calling, " _Kotenik?"_

Peggy goes very still as the figure of the Winter Soldier glides into view, out of the shadows like a wraith. He's in black still, and unmasked: his eyes are fixed on the woman. " _Da, tovarishch Belova?"_ he asks, still as water and waiting for a command.

"I want you to beat our little Ivan Tsarevitch. Leave our Marya to me." The woman turns with the speed of wind, and before Peggy can react she has her by the throat as the Asset advances mechanically on Steve.

"Please," she gasps, staring wildly up into cool blue eyes. "Please, I don't know anything—"

"Oh, you do not," she says, pulling a wickedly-sharp looking knife out and tracing it along her face. "You think I do not know the face of the woman who took Ilya Semenova away?"

"Who—" Peggy can't quite focus. The steel of the knife, the steel of the eyes, and she can hear a fist driving into Steve somewhere close by. "I don't—"

"You knew her as _Dottie_ ," hisses the woman. "Filthy American name for a filthy American face."

"You _know_ her?" Peggy takes in a sharp breath as the knife traces lower, to her throat. "She ran away—I didn't—"

"No, Margaret Carter," says the woman, voice trembling, "you did. She betrayed us. She betrayed me and all her sisters and the Soviet cause. Because _you_ got into her head—"

"I didn't," Peggy gasps, unable to get free. Her thumb is so close to coming loose, so close: the woman is angry and being angry will make her careless. "I didn't—" The knife presses down. It slices her neck as if it's butter, and Peggy goes very still, the instinct to thrash overridden by her terror of dying.

That seems to please the woman. "You're brave," she says. "I can see now why Ilya liked you."

Hot blood courses down Peggy's neck and into her shirt. "She was brave, too," she whispers. "A real credit to the Soviets."

The blond woman blinks, the compliment unexpected, and that's when Peggy dislocates her thumb, wrenches her hand free, and seizes the knife. She only has one hand, and the woman has two: the Soviet bears down on her with glee as the knife edges nearer to her chest and—

* * *

 

Steve reels his head back up. Being beaten to death wasn't on his list of things he has to get done tonight, but then again his plans never work out. "Bucky," he says again, and gets another metal fist to the face for his efforts.

There has to be a way. There has to. Peggy's being menaced by the blond ice queen from hell and he can't get free because if he gets free Peggy will probably be killed and Bucky _won't stop_ beating the hell out of him in absolute silence.

_The words._

Memory streams back, and he remembers the code words: the ones filtered through a CC television network as Zemo bent the Soldier to his will—

Another fist, this one in the gut.

What the _hell_ were the words? Had they even implemented them this early? He doesn't know. He can't remember.

_You have a perfect memory. Come on. Focus. You can do this._

"Buck—"

A fist to the face again, then another four in quick succession, as if he's a punching bag. He's sure something's probably broken, but he doesn't have time to worry. The tape, the tape: he'd only heard the words once—what _were_ they?

_I have to remember words in another language I heard ten years ago—_

Another crack to the jaw, and he's drooling blood, choking as the Winter Soldier grabs him by the throat with his cold, metal fingers and squeezing. He won't kill him, he hasn't been ordered to yet—the pressure is on his arteries, not his windpipe, and Steve goes lightheaded, forehead throbbing. "James—Buch-anan— _Barnes_ ," he manages, and the Winter Soldier's eyes flicker with the barest hint of recognition. "Your name—"

"I have no name," snarls the Soldier, and lets go of his throat, punching him with his flesh-and-bone fist. "I have—no— _name—"_

It comes to Steve, then, clear as day in the spaces between blows to his gut. " _Toska,"_ he gasps, and the Soldier pauses, fist trembling, eyes focused on him.

Steve draws another breath. " _Prorzhaveli."_

The fist wavers, just a bit.

" _Pechi."_

The Winter Soldier's blue eyes find his, fear written there. Steve can't look at him: he rushes through the rest of the words and stares at the man's fist while he does.

" _Zarya. Semnadtsat. Dobrokachestvennaya. Devyat. Vozvrashcheniye domoy. Odin. Gruzovoy vagon."_

_Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak.Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight car._

The Soldier stands up straight and his hands go to his sides, blue eyes blank and lost. "What is my mission?" he asks.

"Incapacitate the woman threatening Agent Carter—don't kill her—and untie us both," Steve says, trying to get his breath back.

The Soldier does not hesitate. He turns, revealing Peggy and the woman—Belova, did he call her?— struggling with a knife, and with one punch of his fist Belova is sprawled on the floor, bleeding from the mouth and gasping like a fish.

" _Kotenik?_ " she manages in shock, and he does not even look down, just steps across to Peggy and unties her other hand and then both feet.

Peggy lurches out of her chair and coughs, rubbing her wrists, before picking up Belova's dropped sidearm and aiming it at the woman on the floor.

"Don't—" Steve gets up as Bucky unties him, and grabs her arm.

"She knows me," she says through her teeth, and he's never seen her like this before, bloodied and battered with a look in her eyes like she could easily snap a neck. "She knows who I am. We can't let her live."

Belova sits up, hands raised in surrender. "Don't take him," she says, an edge of terror in her voice. Her eyes snap to the Soldier. "Don't. You don't know what you're doing. He will kill you if he isn't wiped—"

"We can handle him just fine, thank you," says Peggy, steely and sure.

"They're going to—" Belova is shaking, tears in her eyes. "Shoot me, if you're going to. Death is better than what's waiting for me. Just don't take him. Without the stasis, without the wipes—you don't know how to _handle_ him—"

"Why do you call him _kotenik_?" Peggy demands, hand trembling on the trigger. "Tell me."

Belova's eyes flicker up to Steve, then over to the Soldier. "I… I knew him in the room," she says simply. "I had thought…his eyes, you see—he had always a mask on, and we thought they were black, like the devil…but when I saw them—they were blue. Like a kitten's eyes." Tears streak her face. "He is not the monster they want to make him. You don't understand."

"Room? What room?" Peggy's still honed in on her, and Steve looks up, noting that nobody seems to be coming inside yet. He leaves Peggy's side for a moment to step across, checking the door: nobody.

"The red room," whispers Belova so only Peggy can hear, pale. "I don't know when—it's been some time." Her eyes flicker across the Soldier again, but he's impassive.

"They're wiping you too, aren't they?" Steve asks gently, coming back, and she shakes her head frantically as Peggy slightly lowers her handgun. "What's your name?"

"Yelena," she says, looking at him as if he might slap her. "I cannot go back without him. How did you know the words?"

"You will go back," Peggy says through her teeth. "Go back and tell them that you've lost their precious asset. We're taking him back where he belongs."

"He's not _yours_!" Yelena shrieks, furious.

Steve shakes his head. "He'll be safe as long as you're silent about what you've seen here. Who you've seen. You understand? I can help him be safe. He's not a monster, Yelena. I know that. You have to trust me."

Yelena's eyes flicker from him to the Soldier, and something like hope and despair mingled blooms in her eyes. "Keep him locked away safe," she says to Peggy suddenly, low and urgent. "Marya, keep Koschei locked away _safe_. You understand me?"

"Yes," says Peggy, hands still trembling.

Yelena slams her hand on the ground, gives a defeated little cry, reaches into her belt, pulls out a small capsule, then looks at the Soldier again before popping it into her mouth and swallowing. Her eyes flutter back and she goes limp, collapsing onto her side on the concrete, elbows akimbo and eyes half-open.

"Did she just—" Peggy lowers the gun, shocked.

Steve looks at the Soldier, who seems unimpressed. "Can you tell us what that was?" he asks.

"Knocked herself out," says Bucky, as if he's a robot reciting facts. "Barbiturate. Oral. She won't remember the mission. Short term memory loss."

"Well, isn't that fine," says Peggy, tucking the gun into her belt. "They won't be able to torture it out of her. Let's go. We have twelve hours until our flight leaves."

Steve turns to the Soldier—not Bucky, he keeps reminding himself, not yet. "Soldier, will you—you'll lead us out of here. Minimal casualties. We need to get out unseen and unnoticed."

"Yes, sir," says the Soldier, and turns emotionlessly, heading for the back door.

Peggy's hands grasp Steve's sleeve as he follows, picking up their bags. "You look like hell," she says, her free hand clamped to her neck.

"You don't look half bad yourself," he says, getting an arm around her back and helping her out the door. "We'll put something on that once we're clear."

When she responds, her voice is tight. "Good. It burns like the devil and I don't fancy getting an infection."

* * *

They get out without being seen. The Soldier moves like a ghost, silent and efficient in everything he does, and gets them into the woods, deep into the underbrush and far away from the patrols. He doesn't seem to recognize either of them, and Steve tells Peggy not to push it: they can deal with it later. He only obeys Steve's orders, and only does as Peggy says when Steve tells him to: clearly Steve's the new handler, and whatever he says goes.

They stop in a clump of pines and Steve hands him the first-aid kit and tells him to patch Peggy up. He does, with the silent movements of a trained nurse, and she's very quiet and still as he works. Steve lays out the clothes he brought, and when the Soldier's done dabbing Peggy's neck with iodine and plastering a bandage over the cut Steve tells him to strip down and get changed.

This…has a marked effect on the Soldier. He just stands there, staring at Steve, and starts to tremble.

"What's wrong?" Peggy demands, getting up from the pine needles. "Is he hurt?"

Steve is just as baffled. "No, I—I think something I said must have triggered—"

"Please," says the Soldier suddenly, the only word he's said since leaving the bunker. "Don't."

"Don't what?" Peggy circles around, and he fixes his eyes on her, huge and pleading even in the limited moonlight. "It's perfectly all right, Ba—erm, Soldier, nobody's going to hurt you—"

"All I said was to strip—"

The Soldier's eyes go blank. He drops to his knees and huddles against the trunk of a pine, making keening sounds as his shoulders heave, and Steve backs away, shocked and startled at the noise. "Hey, pal—"

"Please.  _Please._ Don't. Don't. Don't. Please." The words are monotonous, forced out as if unwillingly, and with every word he shields his head as if he expect to be beaten.

"Oh, God," says Peggy, white-faced even in the dark. "No, never mind it: I know what to do. Tell him I'm his other handler." Steve can't breathe. The Soldier is still kneeling, staring up at him in mute misery, and he can't get a word out of his throat. " _Steve,_ " Peggy hisses, and he shakes himself.

"Soldier. Attention."

The man's eyes snap up, ready and waiting.

"This woman—her name is Carter. She's your other handler. You'll obey her, too. Okay?"

The Soldier slowly stands and turns to Peggy, waiting for a command. She looks up at him. "Right," she says. "I'm going to take your clothing off, and change you for our new mission."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, with no hint of the previous terror, and lets Peggy strip him naked and dress him again as if he's a doll, a thing without any motivation other than the whim of his handlers.

It makes Steve sick to his stomach.

When they have him dressed again, with gloves on to hide the metal arm and a jacket on over a shirt, he looks almost normal. He willingly carries Peggy's bag and lets himself be guided back through the woods to Kaesong, and they reach the airfield as the sun is coming up, streaking the sky with pink and orange.

They bundle onto the freight plane, and all Steve can think is that the mission went off perfectly, against all odds—they've achieved their objective, but God, at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> -KPA= Korean People's Army, AKA the North Korean forces.  
> \--Korean translations-ish, not exact because I'm RUSHING to update lol:   
> -Steve to the KPA: "We're just writers. We're on your side of the, uh, Liberation War. We support you."  
> -KPA officer to his subordinates: "Take the prisoners to the bunker. We'll see what our allies say."  
> -I am totally writing this by the seat of my pants, which mean update will be a bit erratic, but I promise it's not going to be an uncompleted work. I will adjust tags accordingly as I go along!


	11. July 1, 1950

Barnes is silent on the plane.

He's silent as they disembark, seemingly unimpressed by the fact that they're back on American soil; he takes everything from the airstrip outside DC to the ride back to the Playground (because of all the names, _that's_ what someone thought would work) in stride and complete silence; he walks into the building from dark night to bright fluorescent lighting with a blank look on his face.

He's waiting to be told what to do, Peggy realizes, and she gently directs him into the infirmary, keeping one hand firm on his flesh and bone arm while the higher-ups and the orderlies and the nurses and the agent all run around in combined horror and jubilation because they've extracted one of the Soviet's most valuable assets in the Cold War and nobody seems to know what to do with him.

Steve sits on a chair in the corner and grips the seat with his hands until his knuckles turns white. He lets nurses cluster around and cut off his shirt and plaster bandages on his bruised and battered body and face, but his eyes stay fixed on Peggy and on Barnes.

 _No, not Barnes_ , Peggy reminds herself over and over, _the Winter Soldier._

"We'll need a psychiatrist. Possibly several, if you can find them," she tells the head doctor, who writes everything she says down, followed by the other physicians behind him. "He's entirely absent any sense of self or identity, and right now he answers _only_ to myself and to Agent Johnson, so one of us ought to be present at all times until he's managed to shed that part of his programming—"

"Director Carter, with all due respect," says an older doctor who Peggy has never really liked in condescending tones, "you _really_ don't seem to understand that humans can't be programmed. I mean, that's just wishful thinking. Science fiction. He's suffering from combat fatigue, likely, but he seems—"

"Soldier," she says sharply, and the man sits up straight instantly from his half-reclined position on the hospital bed, eyes focused on her. "Please get off the bed and do four jumping-jacks, then ten push-ups, then fifteen sit-ups. Then I want you to put your fingers in your ears, stick out your tongue, and kneel on the floor." He obeys instantly, executing every movement perfectly, then kneels and waits for further commands when he is done. The doctors go very quiet, and Peggy turns back. "Should I direct him to punch you in the face, Doctor Warren, or are you convinced?"

"That—that won't be necessary."

"Good. I want those psychiatrists. Am I quite clear?"

The doctor's face slowly regains its color. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

"I should shave," says Steve, low and quiet from his spot in the chair by the bed. They've finally gotten the Soldier to sleep, even though it took almost all the morphine they'd had on hand to get him there. Nobody's been able to get close enough to give him a physical examination yet. He's still in his borrowed field clothes, mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling with the steadiness of a drum-beat.

Peggy looks up from her reams of paperwork, which she's filling out in preparation for their debrief, which will take place just as soon as they officially open and Phillips gets in to supervise. "What?"

"I should shave. He won't—he doesn't know me." He shifts his weight. "He might, if I shave."

"That's a risk we can't afford," Peggy says softly. "I know you're worried—"

"He's my friend," Steve insists, and his voice breaks. She gives him a long look: two black eyes, a bandage plastered across his chest, bruising already purpling on his torso and face, a split lip. The blanket draped across his bare back and shoulders makes him look like a survivor of some tragedy: all he needs is a tin mug of tea clutched in his hands. "It's only been five years, Peggy. If I can get through to him—"

"We don't know how he'll react. I won't have you compromising your cover," she says tersely. "Not for this. Not until there's no other way."

He looks stricken. "Peggy, you can't—"

"On the contrary, Agent, I am the Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, and I can do whatever I want within the confines of my position and my duty to my country," Peggy snaps. Her neck is burning from the iodine they plastered on, and itching under the bandage. "I have paperwork to do, and I know next to nothing about his condition—"

"I'll help you," Steve says, lurching out of his seat and grabbing for the paper and pencil in his bag, still packed, still on the floor. "I'll write down everything I know, everything I can remember."

Peggy shuts her eyes. A massive headache is coming on, just behind her left temple; she's probably dehydrated, and her thumb hurts like the dickens where she'd popped it out of joint. She ought to get it wrapped. "They're going to ask _how_ a junior field agent knows all of this informa—"

"Easy, I'll tell them I got a look at a file but couldn't steal it—"

" _Stop interrupting me!"_ Her voice is sharp, ringing out loud enough that the nurses and doctors outside go quiet for a moment, the hum of words dipping and rising again like so many bees in a hayfield. Steve freezes and stares at her, the pencil stilling in his hand. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself in the quiet, and a rustle from the bed alerts her to the fact that the Soldier is awake. His blue eyes, bleary with morphine, focus on her, then on Steve.

"I'm sorry, Director," says Steve sincerely, and looks at the Soldier. "It's not time to wake up yet."

"Cryo," says the Soldier, voice hoarse with disuse.

"What?" Peggy leans forward. She'd thought Barnes handsome in a sort of insolent, casual way, but now he just looks like a lost child, with an expression on his face as if he's never woken in a bed before.

"C-cryo," he says again, his hands beginning to shake. "I have to—it's—"

"Soldier," says Steve firmly, and he turns immediately, waiting to be told what to do. "You can tell us what the procedure is. It's all right."

The Soldier's face smooths out, and he recites, "Asset must be wiped after every mission. Asset must be placed in cryo. Post-cryo removal, the asset must be wiped again to ensure complete submission and obedience. The incomplete execution of this routine will result in subversive attitudes and activities. The Asset cannot be allowed to engage in subversion." It's the eeriest thing Peggy's ever seen, this man talking about himself in the third person as if he's outside his own body, a spectator looking in. Steve's frantically taking notes, and the Soldier just keeps talking. "If the wipes are incomplete, the Asset will begin to break down the _obucheniye_ he has received. Confusion and erratic behavior are to be expected. These must be remedied with several wipes, one after the other, to ensure all memory of the event is lost. The Asset cannot be allowed to remember..." He trails off, stops talking, and stares into the middle distance, waiting.

"Crikey," says Peggy faintly. "I don't suppose you know what _obucheniye_ is?"

Steve's eyes are trained on the Soldier. "Training," he says, and his tone indicates he's not thinking about basic at Camp Lehigh.

"You mentioned—" Peggy hesitates. "Before we left, I mean. You said… brainwashing. What is that?"

"What—" Steve frowns, then remembers. "Oh. I guess it's not exactly an accepted facet of psychology yet, huh? It's, uh, the idea that—well, it's not an idea, we know it happens. It's…the name for controlling someone through a lot of pain, actually get their minds to rewire into a different pattern of behavior. Indoctrination, to an extreme."

"Why, I've seen that," says Peggy, surprised. "Dottie Underwood."

"Who's that?"

"A woman I knew. She was a spy from Russia, from the Red Room."

Steve goes pale. "The—the what?"

"The Red Room. It was a program—likely still is, since Yelena said she'd come out of it, designed to train young girls into assassins for the Soviets. She handcuffed herself to her own bed every night. I remember the scar on her wrist." Peggy taps the pencil. "You're saying they can do that, not only to a child, but to a full grown man? Like in Orwell's book?"

"Absolutely." Steve glances back over at the Soldier, who's still docilely staring into thin air, waiting. "I mean, look at him."

"Why did you react like that when I said _Red Room_?" Peggy asks, eyes narrowed.

"Didn't know it went back so far," he says. "Gotta say I feel bad for Yelena."

"I don't," says Peggy sourly. "She nearly carved me up like a Christmas ham before you got Barnes under control."

"It's not like she chose to be an assassin," he says, giving her a look. "If she came out of the Red Room, she was forced to be what she is."

She wants to argue, especially with the throbbing pain of the cut on her neck still burning, but something in his eyes tells her to let this one go. "All right. So he's been brainwashed. What's the next step?"

Steve's eyes go back to Barnes. "Treat him as well as we can until he comes out of it, I think," he says, his shoulders sagging a little. "There's no button you push to undo stuff like this and make someone magically whole again. It'll be rough."

"I expect so," she says, lost in thought. Will the psychiatrists even be able to handle the Soldier as he is? Without an in-depth knowledge of how the human mind can be reprogrammed, they might cause more damage than good. "You ought to go home. You look dreadful and I'm sure you could use a good night's sleep."

"What, and leave you here on your own? Not a chance." Steve's bruised mouth ticks up in a half-smile.

"Home," says the Soldier, tiny and frightened.

Peggy glances over and does a double-take: his fingers are clenched down on the rails of the bed, the flesh ones white-knuckled and the metal ones denting the rails; he's broken into a cold sweat. "Soldier—"

"The _chair_ ," he whimpers, and Steve crosses over immediately, taking the blanket off his own shoulders and wrapping it tight around Barnes. "Not the chair. _Not_ the chair. Please—"

"Nobody's taking you to a chair," Steve says gently, rubbing his right arm firmly. "Hey. Deep breaths. You're safe. You're not being taken anywhere."

"I kn-know you," he stammers, staring up at Steve and then looking away as if he's afraid he's going to be hit for looking at his handler in the face. "Moscow. The warehouse."

"Yes, that's right," says Peggy, trying to be encouraging. His eyes snap over to her, and he blinks rapidly, as if trying to rouse himself.

"You—I shot you," he says, voice shaking. "I—I failed my mission—"

"No, you didn't," Steve says firmly. "Hey. Soldier. Look at me, all right?" Barnes' eyes slowly make their way up, fixing on Steve's. "You succeeded. Your mission _now_ is to sleep and eat something and try to remember as much as you can, okay?"

"Remember," he repeats, trembling. His greasy hair falls into his eyes, and he blinks it away.

"You don't have to now," Peggy pipes up. "Right now just… calm down a bit, and try to sleep some more."

"Sleeping is not allowed," stammers the Soldier, looking agitated. "Sleeping—re-integrates the neurons—" Steve moves slightly, and the Soldier cringes, as if he's expecting to be punished for contradicting orders.

"I'm not gonna hit you," Steve murmurs. "Easy. We want you to sleep, okay? We know it re-integrates the neurons. You're not gonna be wiped again. Nobody's gonna hurt you." He gently maneuvers the other man down on his back, until he's relaxed again, looking vaguely confused. The Soldier's eyes close, and he takes a few breaths, as if he's afraid to fall asleep.

"Coney Island," says the Soldier softly as his eyes drift shut, and Steve stiffens, shocked.

"What?" Peggy leans forward, but Barnes is already out like a light, exhausted; the dark circles under his eyes purplish in the overhead lights. "Is that a code word?"

"No," says Steve, pale under the bruises on his face. "We went there, back in…thirty-eight? He made me ride the Cyclone and I threw up. "

"He remembers?" Peggy asks, surprised. "He recognizes you?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's just the memory, and not me." Steve covers him with the blanket and turns to Peggy, looking almost as lost and exhausted as Barnes. "I should sleep here. Just in case."

"I can have a cot made up for both of us," Peggy says, glancing down at her paperwork, then flushes. "I mean—I meant a cot for you and one for me."

"I don't think we'd both fit on one," he says, trying to bring some lightness to the levity of the situation. "I'll ask a nurse."

"You're hurt. I'll do it. Sit down." She sets aside her clipboard and stands, feeling the ache in her thighs.

"Hey, Peggy." Steve's voice is soft, quiet so as not to wake Barnes.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. I'm sorry about all this. I really am."

"Don't bother about it," she says hastily. "As if you could do anything else. It's all right. I'll be back in a moment."

"Thanks," he says again, and she slips out, the curtain whispering behind her.

* * *

Phillips storms the building at five in the morning. He whips the curtain aside to the cubicle containing Barnes' bed, shaving cream still on his neck and his tie dangling loose around his collar. "Carter. Johnson. My office. Now."

"Someone needs to stay with Barnes—" Peggy objects, groggily sitting up from her cot. At the foot of the bed, Steve sits up, the circles under his eyes matching the bruises on his face and body. Barnes doesn't move, still sleeping peacefully.

"We'll strap him down if he get rowdy. I need to speak to both of you _now_. That means now, not later, not in a minute, _now._ " Phillips' tone brooks no argument. Steve shoots Barnes a look and slips out, following Peggy down the hall, into the elevator, and into Phillip's office on the second floor.

He sits heavily, and they face him. Peggy feels rather like she's facing an awful headmaster at school. Phillips rubs his eyes, drags his hand down his face, and says, "I won't beat around the bush. Someone's leaked Barnes' rescue to the CIA. They want him for observation."

Steve opens his mouth, and Peggy steps on his foot firmly. "No," she says instead, as Steve presses his swollen lips into a line. "We absolutely cannot allow that. He's not stable—"

"He's a POW," says Steve, and Phillips glanced over, as if he's forgotten the other man was in the room. "He's probably one of the last POW's from the war rescued from foreign soil and he's in a delicate condition. He should be treated as such, not handed off to the CIA to be a science experiment."

"Now, I know it's probably a bit personal for you, Johnson," says Phillips, looking uncomfortable, "you being a prisoner of war, too—"

"You're damn right it's personal," says Steve hotly, and not even Peggy's heel crushing down into his toe can stop him. "That man's a shell of his former self and if the CIA's allowed to start messing with his head it's going to break him even further. He could snap and kill everyone in any facility. They don't have the manpower or the resources to handle him."

"What Agent Johnson is _saying_ ," Peggy grinds out through her teeth, letting pressure off his foot, "is that as of right now the only people Barnes accepts as authority figures are him and myself, and upsetting his current environment would have dire consequences for everyone within a mile radius."

"How do you figure that?" Phillips asks, brow furrowing. "What do you mean, he only accepts you and Johnson—"

She exchanges a look with Steve helplessly. How are they supposed to explain this one? "Agent Johnson…said a phrase and inadvertently triggered a…sort of reset on Barnes' mind. I'm not sure if you received my notes on the—"

"Yes, I got them at the door," Phillips says gruffly. "Read them on the elevator up. _Brain-washing_ , that's an interesting turn of phrase. You mentioned you'd seen it when you were working in New York? The Russian woman?"

Peggy relaxes minutely. "Yes. What Barnes has gone through is something similar, but to a much more advanced and severe degree. He has not been allowed to sleep, likely for the past five years or so. He's undergone something we don't quite understand the mechanics of yet— _wiping_ , he calls it, and some sort of cryogenic chamber for stasis between missions."

Phillips looks aghast. "You're telling me the Soviets have figured out how to freeze someone and bring them back to life?"

Steve nods tightly. "As far as we can make out, yes."

Phillips sits back and takes that in for a moment. "Carter, you told me you suspected Barnes was given something similar to the stuff Erskine put into—into Steve Rogers. That still hold water?"

Steve looks at the floor. Peggy nods. "Yes. I feel that Hydra may have experimented on many prisoners of war with similar formulas. Some might not even know it. Agent Johnson, for instance."

Below Phillips' sight line, Steve kicks her in the ankle and she kicks him back. Phillips frowns and looks at him in interest. "Really? You think so?"

"I don't know what Director Carter—" Steve begins, half-panicked, but Peggy interrupts.

"You saw him in the physical, sir. Also, if you'd note that his bruises are already turning green, and mine are still purple. Clearly there's some advanced healing factor at play here." She looks at Steve, her mouth pressed into a line as she shakes her head tightly, so subtly Phillips doesn't notice. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this, Johnson."

"Christ," mutters Steve, and slumps back in his chair, covering his face under pretense of shock while glaring at her from the side. Phillips looks convinced, and puts his glasses on, pulling a memo pad toward him on the desk.

"I'll hold off the CIA as long as I can. No promises. We're keeping his presence under wraps. If he was in better shape, I'd put him in a safe house in New Jersey and call it a day, but you're saying—"

"He can't live alone yet," says Peggy firmly. "Absolutely out of the question. He needs to stay here under supervision until he's seen by psychiatrists. I've asked for several—"

"Yes, I saw. You'll be lucky if you get two." Phillips leans back. "Most of them are already contracted by the CIA. They'll be loaned out to us on a case by case basis. And we can't get a private one, either. They tend to talk."

"We don't have _any_ of our own doctors? I was told they could get me the men I needed."

"Doctors, yes. Shrinks, no. The doctors here don't have the authority to—"

The lights in the office dim, and the red emergency lighting blinks on, washing all three people in a faint ruby glow; erasing the color of Steve's bruises. Phillips has just enough time to stand up before a klaxon starts blaring, and Peggy's heat sinks as she turns to Steve, who utters one word—

" _Barnes._ "

They run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> \- the idea of "brainwashing" was developed to explain why people cooperated with the Chinese government, but the concept had been around since Orwell's "1984", published in 1949--so Peggy's right on the mark.   
> \- I'm sure you all signed up to read about fascinating intelligence organization conflicts during the Cold War. Apologies. Don't worry, more relationship stuff is coming!  
> \- Press F to pay respects for poor Bucky.


	12. July 2, 1950

The infirmary floor is littered with broken glass, glittering in the red emergency lighting like drops of blood. The Asset kneels, trembling, by the wall that provides the most cover from the frantic agents and tries to work through his muddled mind.

_These handlers don't know how to take care of me._

He strikes himself in the gut, half-panicked for daring to think such a thing about his handlers. Handlers are the ultimate authority. Unquestioned. How could he think such a thing?

But he's slept. He's slept twice, in the same twelve-hour period, and that's forbidden: no one has given him drugs to stay awake. No one has given him orders in hours, and then he'd woken _alone_ and a white-coated doctor was leaning in to do something to his arm—

His arm—

The Asset curls in, rocking back and forth and taking small breaths. He can't remember why he doesn't want anyone touching his metal arm. He can't remember what he did to the doctor, only that the next thing he knew he was racing down the halls and being shot at from interior offices—glass breaking, shattering—

 _It's only tranquilizers._ One had struck him in the meat of his thigh and he'd yanked it out, crushing the needle in his hand of steel. Now he fights the urge to shut his eyes. _If I sleep, they'll put me back and I won't know—_

Why does he have leather straps around his wrists?

"Soldier."

He knows that voice. He looks up, and there's his two handlers, _finally_ says a tiny voice in the back of his mind, accompanied by an older man with a seamed face he doesn't know. He catalogs the old man as a possible threat and struggles to his feet, the room spinning.

The handler with the beard speaks again. "Soldier. You're safe. Stand down."

That can't be right. The Asset looks at the woman, who's disheveled and pale—oh. She's frightened. "Confirm order," he requests, half-afraid to—but they haven't punished him for any infractions yet, so why is he afraid?

"Order confirmed," she tells him, stepping forward with her hands extended, and he suddenly wants nothing more than to collapse into her arms.

Oh, wait. No, that was Yelena. This isn't Yelena, this is a brunette with large dark eyes, about a head shorter—Carter. That's right. Her name is Carter.

Sudden memory comes back, just a snatch of it. A red dress, satin at the neckline, light shining off waves of chestnut hair, _I might even, when all this is over, go dancing_ —

"Carter," he says, shaken.

She nods. "Yes, that's right." It _is_ her, the same woman: but now she's wearing a bulky sweater and long johns and she's plastered with bandages, her hair lank and dull and tied out of her face. It can't be the same woman. But it must be. He can't think. He can't—

"What year is it?" he asks, hands shaking. It's not fair, he _remembers_ , and now he remembers another thing, that he was given the order to remember as much as he could. He's going to lose his concentration if he sleeps. If they put him in cryo.

The man—Johnson—exchanges a look with Carter. "It's nineteen fifty," he says, "July."

July. Why is July important? The Asset leans against the wall, fighting the dark wave of unconsciousness that threatens to swallow him whole. "July," he says, slurring as he speaks. "Ju—"

_July fourth, fireworks exploding in the sky, handing Steve a stick of peppermint candy, red and white stripes, happy birthday Stevie, banners in the street—_

The Asset panics. Heart pounding, he thrusts himself off the wall and staggers for the exit, which both his handlers have left open—the old man is in the way.

" _Phillips_!" screams Carter, and something in her tone stops the Asset from killing him: he only delivers a punch to the gut with his right hand that knocks the man over, and then he's running, crashing into walls, unable to keep upright for much longer—

"Peggy, you stay with Phillips, I'll get him—" That’s Johnson, faint behind him. The Asset can see the stairwell, and he breaks the door down with his metal arm, slamming into the wall inside before staggering down the stairs, clinging to the rail hand over hand, metal over flesh. He has to get away, he has to get out, get somewhere safe.

More memories are streaming back, unwanted and unconnected: a tank blasting blue light, a dank hallway, a man with glasses who takes his arm off and puts another on, lights shining in his face, tears on Yelena's cheeks, a glass reflection of his own face as ice frosts over the world, a forest, blood, a blond man reaching for his hand from above—

He collapses after two flights, back pressed into the concrete wall. It smells like new paint. He can see Johnson's boots coming down the stairs, and terror fills his throat. "Don't," he begs, trying to huddle further into the wall.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Johnson says. The Asset can't take his eyes off the boots: he knows men with boots use them to kick and beat and bloody. He doesn't know how he knows this, but he does.

Johnson hesitates, then bends down, taking off his boots. They thump down on the floor, and Johnson steps closer in his socks, silent as a cat, before crouching down and inching closer to the Asset.

The Asset knows he could choke the life out of the man with one hand if he wanted to. He remains still. 

"Soldier," Johnson gently tells him, when he's close enough to reach out and touch him. "Nobody's going to hurt you."

"The Asset must be wiped." The words shake out, slurred and frantic. "The Asset cannot be allowed to—to remember—"

"Your name," says Johnson, "is James Buchanan Barnes."

"No—" He vaguely knows that name: it brings back fear and the taste of blood. "No, I'm not—"

"Your friends called you Bucky," says Johnson, and the Asset snaps to attention as best he can, fighting to stay awake. The man's blue eyes are wet, and he's reminded of Yelena, but he doesn't remember why—

"Yelena cried too," he says faintly, blinking at the tears on Johnson's cheeks. "When they… when they put me in the tube. But she didn't call me Bucky. She called me _kotenik_."

"Yeah, she did," Johnson confirms, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He sounds as if he's choking. "She cared for you, I think. In her own way."

"She was my handler. It was her duty." The Asset's eyes feel so heavy. "Don't…let me sleep…"

"Are you afraid to sleep?" Johnson's hands rest on the Asset's shoulders, and they feel nice: strong and warm and sure. "We won't leave you alone again. That was a mistake on our part."

"Don't let them put me in the tube," whispers the Asset.

"You're not going to be put into anything but a bed," says Johnson, and the Asset feels himself being lifted, gently slung over a broad shoulder by one arm as he tries to get his numb legs to work. "I've got you. Lean into me, Buck—can I call you Bucky?"

The Asset tries to think, but that name hasn't been forbidden that he can remember, and nobody's ever asked him what _he_ wants to be called. "Yes," he says, head lolling.

"Easy does it. Up we go." Johnson's strong, strong enough to manhandle both him and the arm, and the Asset—no, Bucky, he's Bucky now—lets him do it, all the way up to the top of the stairs, and after that Bucky can't remember what happens. He's just so, so tired, and he doesn't want to fight anymore.

* * *

"How's Phillips?"

Peggy turns away from Bucky's bed as Steve comes in. "Resting. He'll have a nasty bruise, but he'll be all right. Barnes wasn't quite up to task, thank God."

Steve sits down heavily in the chair she's not using. Bucky is asleep, firmly strapped down with triple-reinforced steel-weave straps at ankle and wrist. Peggy's been overseeing his physical examination for the past hour as doctors file in and out, and the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon outside the windows. She looks exhausted: dark circles under her eyes, pale lips, bruised face. "Good. The doctor? I heard he was..."

"Dead." Peggy says numbly. "You should go home. I've got this under control."

"I'm not leaving you here with him on your own, Director," Steve tells her, "and that's final."

"I can handle him on my own." She sounds absolutely mulish.

Steve sighs. "If he was an ordinary man, you could. He's not. You go home and sleep. I'll stay here."

Both Peggy's hands come up to rub her eyes, knuckles digging deep. "I can't. I've got to stay. Phillips is down for the count, and I'm the only director here. I've got a doctor in the morgue I have to come up with a cover story for, because the man had a family, and Stark's in New York."

As much as he hates it, she's right. Steve leans forward and puts his head in his hands. His stomach growls, reminding him that he probably needs to get some food soon. "You want me to bring you anything?"

"If you could pop into the canteen as soon as they open and grab me coffee and a sandwich, I'd appreciate it. And a pad of paper and a pencil, please." Peggy crosses back to the other side of the bed as another doctor pokes his head in, looking at Bucky as if he's being sent to the gallows. "Yes?"

"I'm here to draw the blood samples, sorry, ma'am—"

"Right. Go on. Make sure it's only one, and—Johnson, would you accompany Doctor Guggenheim to the lab?" She turns and looks at Steve, and of course he can't say no.

"Sure."

* * *

The day stretches on and on without end. Peggy's finally comfortable enough around noon to leave Barnes on his own, supervised by Steve, and heads to her office, finally passing out on the couch with the door shut.

Phillips kicks his way out of his infirmary cubicle by noon, insisting he feels fine even though he's clearly still affected: it's not a point anyone wishes to argue with him, so he's allowed to pull his tie back on and take command again.

Bucky wakes up once and immediately says he's thirsty without seeming to notice the straps holding him down. Steve gives him water, and Bucky drinks. "Did I kill someone?" he asks blankly, looking up at Steve with wide eyes.

"Don't worry about it," says Steve, heart clenching. "You just rest." Bucky lets his eyes shut again, drifting back into sleep.

Peggy comes back around one, still looking ragged, and continues to take notes, working like a madwoman as Steve supervises: Bucky does not move, and the doctors never stop trickling in.

* * *

"I can't debrief you two like this," says Phillips at four in the afternoon, staring at Peggy and Steve as if he's not sure he's seeing ghosts or living, breathing humans.

"Like what?" Peggy mumbles, half-asleep, her pencil still taking notes and beginning to loop off the lined paper. Steve raises his head blearily. Bucky is still out like a light. Probably catching up on sleep. That's good.

"You both look dead on your feet. Go home. I'm calling Stark in."

"Sir—" The pencil falls from Peggy's fingers, clattering on the linoleum.

Phillips' eyes are stern. "Both of you. I'll send a car if Barnes is a problem. We have a lockdown procedure in place by now with the information Carter's given us. Go home. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," says Steve, dragging himself out of his chair.

"You escort Agent Carter home, Johnson. I don't want her passing out on the bus." Phillips gives Steve a look. "Then you get yourself home."

"I don't need an _escort_ ," Peggy protests, too exhausted to put any real heat into it.

"Come on," says Steve, and helps her up. They both reek of sweat and unwashed skin. "I'll walk you down, ma'am."

"Thank you, Johnson," Phillips says sincerely, and turns away.

* * *

They catch the bus back to Peggy's house as the sun beats down its hot July light on the seats and on their heads. Their clothing and bruised faces get a few odd looks from the nosier passengers, but most of them know to mind their business on public transit. It would have been nice to get a car, but nobody had thought of that.

Peggy falls asleep almost instantly, mid-muttered conversation about handling Barnes: her head drops against the back of her seat, tilting her face heavenward, then rolls into Steve's shoulder as the bus hits a bump a few minutes later.

Steve slouches down very carefully in his seat so that her face fits better between the curve of neck and shoulder, and wills himself not to fall asleep. They can't miss their stop, and he can only imagine how tired Peggy is comparatively if he's dozing off where he sits. There are bruise-colored circles under her eyes, and he does some math and realizes that neither of them have really slept in over forty-eight hours.

The bus wheezes to a halt, and it's their stop: Steve gently wakes Peggy up and helps her off. She's grouchy and groggy and stumbles down the sidewalk, forcing her feet to move and scuffing the leather against the concrete walk. "How much further?" she mutters, screening her eyes from the bright sun.

"Two more blocks. Want me to carry you?"

It's telling how exhausted she is when she nods, instead of protesting that someone might see or what will the neighbors think. Steve bends slightly and picks her up, lifting her behind her knees and under her shoulders, so she can curl against his chest and shield her eyes. "Better?" he asks, briskly stepping along. She's not heavy, and his bruises are almost completely healed anyway.

"Yeah," she says into his shirt.

Steve makes it to the house, kick the gate open gently, and takes her up the steps, cradling her in one arm so he can unlock the door with one hand and take her inside. The interior is cool in the way that houses left empty often are: no heat from bodies within to stir the stagnant air. He's at a loss of where to put her—the bed is probably the most convenient, but there's something private about her bedroom; the sofa is closest, but not the most comfortable place to sleep.

Peggy stirs. "Bathroom," she croaks, and he obliges, edging into the bathroom they'd shared for so long. It looks the same, pale blue and coral porcelain—maybe a little messier. He sets her on the closed lid of the toilet and takes a good look at her.

The cut on her throat is angry and red, swelling a little: she hadn't needed stitches, but it should be cleaned out again or at least dabbed in iodine. The bruises on her face are still a deep, angry purple-red, and he almost feels guilty that he's doing better already. "You want a bath?" he asks.

"Please," she murmurs, leaning her head against the towel bar. "Everything hurts. There are some salts in the cabinet."

Steve digs the Epsom salts out and sets the bag by the tub, rolling his sleeves up and starting the water. Good and hot, get her circulation back up. He puts a few handfuls of salt in and swishes the water, a memory he'd almost forgotten suddenly coming back.

_"Come on, Steve. You'll love them. I promise."_

_"Why'd they name it a bath bomb? Sounds like a grenade's going to go off in the water."_

_Laughter, low and teasing. "You're such an old man—"_

_"I'm just saying they could have picked a better name for their product—"_

"Steve?"

He turns to Peggy, both his hands wet. "Sorry," he says dimly, tucking his face into his shoulder to wipe his eyes. He reeks of body odor and unwashed clothing. "Just—remembering something."

"Something nice?" She's tugging at the buttons on her shirt, revealing the bruises on her chest and shoulders, a mottled pattern of red and purple.

"Yeah. My friend—Natasha, the one I mentioned—she tried to get me to buy this bath stuff." He half-smiles, remembering his confusion as she'd pushed him into the Oxford Street Lush in 2018, unable to focus on anything at first because seriously, _who_ had forty different types of soap? "They're called bath bombs. They smell nice and have stuff in them for your skin and color your bathwater all different colors. She gave me grief because I was being crotchety about them, and she was _obsessed_ , I mean, she collected these things and cataloged which ones she liked the most. We were on the run at the time, but she liked staying busy. She always liked staying busy. Here, let me help you."

Peggy lets Steve maneuver her out of her clothes, too stiff and sore to undress herself. "I'm sorry about this," she says, pink-cheeked as he tugs her trousers off and eases her camisole off over her head. "This is likely not the context one imagines when they're thinking about undressing someone."

Steve chuckles. "Don't worry about that," he tells her as he tosses her dirty clothes into the corner. "Can you get your, uh, bra off?"

She tries to reach back, but her face pales and her shoulders drop. "Crikey," she says tightly, eyes shut. "No."

"I'll get it." She stiffly leans forward, and Steve unclasps the back, then pulls it forward and off her bruised arms, setting it aside. "And your, uh—"

"My knickers," she says, inching forward off the commode. "I can get those. Would you—would you mind—" Her cheeks are red, even under the bruises, and Steve nods and turns his attention back to the bath, ignoring her little sounds of muffled pain as she gets herself undressed completely. "Thank heavens I didn't wear stockings," she says thinly, trying for humor. "You would have been utterly baffled by the machinations of a garter belt."

He has to chuckle at that, and turns the spigot off. "Scissors are always a solution."

"You wouldn't dare," she says, fabric rustling. "Right. Help me over and in, would you?"

"Sure," Steve says, and turns around. She's gotten her dressing gown shrugged on over her shoulders. It's not doing much to cover her, but he keeps his eyes firmly on her face and helps her stand, then slip into the tub while he holds the robe.

Her naked shoulders are bruised, and Steve tamps down the sudden urge to fly right back to Korea and beat the shit out of every single soldier in the KPA. Peggy sinks into the water and groans, and he looks away. She catches her breath and drowsily says, "Thank you."

"Can I do anything else to help?" he asks, eyes trained on the tile of the wall. He should go home. He really, really should go back to his apartment, but he can't make himself get up yet.

"A nightgown. Please. You can—you can leave it on the towel bar." Peggy sloshes in the bath a little, and he nods.

"Be right back."

* * *

Her bedroom is still and cool and quiet, the drapes still half-drawn. Standing in the doorway, he can almost picture her running about and packing for Korea: that shoe knocked over must be where she tripped on it, the hairbrush on the bed must have been tossed aside, the closet doors are still open.

Steve crosses to her bureau and slides open the top drawer, feeling like a wayward teenager looking through some unsuspecting girl's drawers. The top is mostly stockings and undergarments, and he shuts the drawer quickly, slightly embarrassed. The second drawer down has nightgowns, and he pulls one out, then picks up her comb just in case.

He heads back down the hall and taps on the door lightly. "It's me," he says. "Decent?"

"Hardly," she says from behind the door. "Come in."

Steve slips inside and keeps his eyes away from the bathtub, draping the nightgown over the towel rod. "Brought you a comb, in case you wanted it."

"Steve."

The word is soft, tentative. She could be about to say anything, anything at all. He inhales a little, and nods, still looking at the wall. "Yeah?"

"You know you can… look at me when I talk to you."

"I, uh." His cheeks are on fire, and he silently curses his dead giveaway blush—it's not like he can help it, with his Irish "sunburn on a cloudy day" skin. "Yeah. I know."

There's the sound of water sloshing, and she clears her throat as it settles. "Eyes over here, please."

He can't help it. He looks, and she's got her arms bent over her chest, her knees drawn up, her hair plastered down her back. She's very clearly naked, but he can't see anything except blurry lines below the water and the swell of both breasts crammed against the crook of her elbows. "I can't raise my arms over my head," she says, and looks down.

"I can wash your hair," he offers, trying very hard to keep his eyes away from her chest and on her face.

"Please, yes," she says, almost too quickly, and he crosses over to find her shampoo, pretending he doesn't see the flush spreading across her face.

* * *

Peggy sits in her hot bath, eyes closed as Steve massages shampoo through her greasy hair, and reminds herself to breathe.

 _You're naked. In a bathroom. With Steve Rogers._ It makes her heart pound in a way almost nothing has for years, and she's almost angry that she's too tired to do anything one way or the other. Or she would be angry if she wasn't so tired. All she can do is lie back with her head resting on the edge of the tub while Steve's fingers work at her scalp and doze, reveling in the sensation and breathing.

He has good hands. He always had, even ninety pounds and five foot four: his hands had been delicate then, long-fingered and bony and sensitive. An artist's hands, so fine that the light could shine through and illuminate the blue veins curling around the bones; pink at the knuckles where the skin was thinnest.

Now his hands are big, big enough to cup her whole head in the palms, with blunt, thick fingers she knows can tear open steel and lift a man off the ground. They still move with the delicacy of a smaller man, carefully smoothing soap away from her eyes, and she remembers a rainy day in France, his fingers sketching out a monkey on a unicycle with the utmost care and precision.

She allows herself to wonder what those hands would feel like on her bare waist.

"I'll rinse you now," he said softly, and Peggy shuts her eyes as he dips up bathwater and pours it over her head, washing the suds out until the strands of her hair squeak, free of grime at last. "Anything else you need me to help you with?"

 _Yes,_ she wants to say, still half-dozing. _Put your hands on me. I won't mind it._ She can't stop thinking about his fingers, his hands brushing past her collarbones. He'd be gentle, she knows that; gentle enough since she's bruised and as tender as a raw steak. She's never let a man touch her like that before, but then again she's never let a man wash her hair while she sits in her bathtub naked as a bird. After all, it's Steve Rogers.

 _But he's not my Steve_ , she thinks blearily, and snaps herself back to the present, embarrassed that she's even entertained the thought. She's washed the rest of herself well enough, so she turns her head. "I'll get out and let you wash," she tells him, and grips the sides of the tub, heaving herself forward and up in a slosh of bathwater that runs down her body. She ignores the searing muscle pain, but doesn't miss Steve's eyes flashing down her body and his cheeks turning pink before he hands her a towel without looking at her.  She wraps it around her and steps out of the bath, but steps wrong on the curve of the inside and slips.

Steve grabs her before she can cry out or even blink, holding her tight to his chest with both hands and easing her out of the tub. "You okay?" he asks.

"Yes," she breathes, far too close to his face. Her towel has slipped, and half her right breast is exposed. "I—I'm terribly sorry."

"It's okay," he says, his hands still firm on her.

"Steve," she says, unable to tear her eyes away from his. His lashes are so _long_. It ought to be illegal.

"Yeah?"

"You can—" _let go of me now,_ she means to say, intends to say, but can't bring herself to say it. He feels solid, like home, and a terrible excitement rises in her throat, almost too daring to ask, but if she doesn't ask know she'll never get the courage to again. "You can—kiss me. Steve."

He blinks, his lips parted in surprise. "You want me to—"

"Oh, bloody hell," she groans, and pulls his head down, covering his mouth with hers. He smells absolutely rank, but she doesn't care: his lips are soft and gentler than she thought they'd be, and his fingers unconsciously tighten on her back, going loose again when she moans through her nose. He tastes like stale coffee and pastrami from the sandwich he had earlier, and Peggy lets go of him once she has to breathe, clinging to his shirt and unable to look him in the eye.

"Peggy," he says, in a tone of voice that makes it sound like he's been hit over the head. He's still clinging to her waist through the towel, with no sign of letting go any time soon.

"I'm sorry," she chokes, barely able to stand. God, she's tired: why did she _do_ that? "I'll just—" Her towel has well and truly slipped down by now, her breast exposed to the air. "I—I'll go to bed—" Steve's left hand reaches up toward her chest, and she steels herself—for what, she doesn't know: his hand squeezing her breast, his fingers brushing across her nipple—but he doesn’t touch her, just tugs the towel back up to cover her. His hands are still pink at the knuckles. Peggy shuts her eyes.

"I'll shower and go back to the apart—"

"No," she whispers, fighting a lump in her throat. "No. You're staying here. Stay here. Please."

"Okay, Peggy," Steve says, and tucks a lock of wet hair behind her ear.

* * *

She never changed the spare room.

That's what Steve notices the instant he steps into it, damp from his shower and wearing just a towel. The bed is made, the room is neat: she'd kept it for him, waiting for him to come back, or possibly hoping he would. There are even spare clothes in the dresser, and he puts on a clean pair of pajama pants before turning the bed down and climbing in. The sheets are clean, too: she's been regularly washing them.

The curtains are drawn, blocking out the light. Peggy is already asleep, curled on her side in the other room; he checked as he went down the hall. All is well.

Steve rolls over in bed and lets himself drift to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Kevlar wasn't invented until the 60s, but I've taken some liberties with SHIELD's inventory.  
> -I just adore the idea of Natasha dragging Steve through a Lush. She'd buy 20 bath bombs and all he would get would be, like, facial moisturizer.  
> -And that's all for this chapter!


	13. July 4, 1950

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is easing a bit into smut, so forewarning! And there WILL be more to come, this is rated E for a reason. ;)

When Peggy wakes, the room is pitch black and her mouth tastes like pennies. She sits up, disoriented: hadn't she just been at the office? Or had that been a dream?

 _No. I'm home._ She digs her fists into her eyes, bringing her knees up to her chest and stretching her arms. Everything is sorer than it was before, but she's at least well-rested, and she knows there's aspirin in the cabinet in the kitchen.

Her clock reads half-past twelve, and she frowns: surely it can't be past noon. What day is it? Her curtains are drawn shut, blocking out any light that might be outside; there's no way to tell for sure. Peggy swings her legs out of bed and makes her way to the window, peering out the curtains, but it's night, the streetlights still on.

Half-past midnight, then. Strange, she could have surely slept more than—what, six hours? She slips her robe on and pokes her head out into the hallway.

The light in the kitchen is on, and she hears movement. She tenses for a moment before remembering that Steve stayed over, and wonders what he's doing up at this hour. There's nothing to be gained by standing in her bedroom doorway, so she pads on out, poking her head round the kitchen door.

Steve turns around. He's barefoot and only wearing a pair of pajama pants, and she feels heat flood her face as she tries very hard to _not_ look at his chest. Or his stomach. Or his shoulders. No. Definitely not looking. "Oh, hey," he says, smiling. "I'm heating water up for some tea. I wondered when you'd wake up."

"How long have you even been up?" she asks, slipping into the chair at the kitchen table. "It's midnight. You can't have only slept for a few hours."

"It's midnight on the fourth," he says, retrieving a clean teacup from the cabinet, and no, she is not looking at the definition in his back or at his flanks or in his triceps, certainly not. "You've slept for about seventeen hours."

Peggy leans back in her seat. Seventeen hours. "Oh, God," she mutters. "Nobody's called?"

"Not yet. I went over yesterday around ten to check on everything." He puts the teabag into the cup and turns to face her, crossing his arms awkwardly. "Left you a note, in case you woke up, but you didn't. Bucky's doing fine. Recognized me—I mean, recognized Agent Johnson." A shadow passes across his face. "Asked about you, too, and managed to get some food down before he got sick. They think something's wrong with his digestive system. Probably some kind of modification that made it easier for him to be frozen. They're looking into it. He's cooperating."

"That's good," she says. "Steve—I'm sorry about the—incident. In the bathroom."

"What?" He looks puzzled, then realization breaks over his face and he grins and shakes his head, dropping his gaze to look at the floor as a blush spreads across his nose and cheeks. "Oh. That. Yeah."

"It—" Peggy can't even look at him. "I—I wasn't thinking straight."

"'Course not," he agrees, still red-cheeked above his beard.

"It—it was very prickly," she stammers, fighting the urge to cover her eyes with her hands. "You ought to shave the beard."

Steve grins. "Oh, I ought to, ought I? Is that a professional opinion or a personal one, Director?"

She sneaks a look at him and can't help it: she bursts out laughing and covers her face with her hands. "Oh, God. As kisses go—"

"That was—" He shakes his head, laughing. "I smelled like a barn. I wasn't even sure you were conscious."

"Oh, trust me, I was _very_ conscious."

The teakettle whistles, and Steve turns quickly to pour the piping hot water into the cup. "You were only awake because the smell woke you up."

She snorts. "I've smelled worse, I'll have you know."

He slips into the other chair and hands her the teacup. "I think I'll shave it anyway," he says, leaning back slightly as she sips her tea. "It's July and it's too hot for facial hair."

"Bloody _Nora_ ," says Peggy suddenly, sitting straight up. "It's your birthday! Your real birthday, I mean—it's today. I can't believe I forgot. I haven't even gotten you a gift—"

"Don't worry about it," he says dismissively, waving a hand. "I don't need anything. Besides, you already gave me a kiss, and that's—"

"That was _not_ on your birthday," she informs him, finishing her tea and setting the cup and saucer aside. "It doesn't count."

"Oh, doesn't it?" he asks, shooting her a wicked little sideways glance.

Her heart thuds. "Absolutely not." Good God, what _was_ it about him that made her feel like a tongue-tied seventeen year old? "Which means, of course, I'll have to give you another present."

Steve turns pink in the face again, looking down. "Oh. Uh. Okay."

"After you shave," she clarifies, and it's about half a second before he gets out of the chair like lightning and makes his way to the bathroom. Peggy fights a hysterical giggle and washes up the cup, takes her time tidying the kitchen, and sneaks back into the hall, peering down to the bathroom. She can hear water running, and the tap-tap of a razor against the sink. Clearly he's found the one she uses to shave her legs, but she can't bring herself to be put out about it.

She pushes the door open a little wider, and he gives her a look in the mirror: he's smeared in shaving soap from his cheeks to his throat. "Almost done," he says, lifting the razor again.

"Don’t mind me, just brushing my teeth," she says, inching past him for her toothbrush. She really does feel as if she's ten years younger, giddy emotion unfolding in her belly, but she pretends not to notice it as she studiously brushes her teeth and watches him shave in the mirror.

He wipes his face clean with a towel and she gapes for a moment, nearly drooling foam down her chin, then spits and rinses. She'd forgotten how clean and strong the line of his jaw was; how bloody handsome he was. Beards should be punishable by criminal prosecution. Especially on Steve Rogers.

"Good?" he asks, running a hand over his chin. "I don't think I missed a spot."

"Very good," she says, turning to face him with one hand curled around the lip of the sink. "I don't suppose you're ready for your present?"

"I guess I am," he says quietly, moving slightly to trap her between him and the sink. It's slightly thrilling, and she fights the instinct to open her knees: she's not wearing knickers and that's a bit far, even for her. He steps closer, though: one hand drifts across her knee. He's very large, and very warm, and very, _very_ half-naked. "This okay?"

"Y-yes," she manages. "All right. You've got to close your eyes." He raises an eyebrow, but does as she asks, and once Peggy's satisfied as to his complete blindness, she moves in closer, but pauses when he smirks slightly. "What?"

"Nothing. I can hear you moving."

"You and your heightened senses," she scoffs. "Just hush."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and she gets closer, carefully cups his cheek in one hand, and strokes his skin. He feels like velvet, smooth one way and slightly rough the other, and her thumb traces across his lower lip: full and plush. When her thumb swipes his mouth again, he does something interesting—he opens his lips and sucks her thumb into his mouth.

Interesting. No, it's not interesting, it's bizarrely erotic. Maybe the most erotic thing Peggy's ever experienced in her life; this man a head taller than her suckling at her thumb, eyes still shut as if she's the most delicious thing he's ever tasted. His mouth is hot and plush and wet, his cheeks hollowed around her finger, and a rush of warmth floods her body, throat to knees. "Oh," she says, sounding very small.

Steve releases her with a gentle _pop_ and says somewhat sheepishly, "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you."

"Startle is not the word I'd use," she mutters faintly, and drags her wet thumb across his mouth again. He still hasn't opened his eyes, and she wonders if he likes being told what to do: if not by most people, perhaps he doesn't mind following _her_ orders particularly, and _that_ is an interesting thought that she decides to file away for later. "Do you want a kiss?" she offers.

"Yes," he says immediately, voice gone slightly husky. He shifts his weight a little against her, and she feels something rather thick and blunt nudging against her knee. _Christ_ , she thinks, appalled. "Sorry," he mutters quickly, tilting his hips away. Steve's obviously not wearing underwear from the look and feel of things, and she quickly looks at his face. He's as red as a tomato, blushing all the way down his chest. "Like you said. Heightened senses."

"Does it make everything…more…well, more?" she asks, her hand still on his cheek.

"You have no idea," he tells her, in a voice gone low and rough. "Can I have my present now?"

"Greedy," she scolds, and leans in, covering his mouth with hers and doing her best not to cause any undue discomfort by moving her lower body nearer to his; he can't be comfortable in his condition. She's familiar with the idea of how…things…are supposed to work, but she's never been this close to any such body part in any such state.

Steve doesn't seem to have the same idea. His hands push gently into her hair, one trailing down her throat and the other pressing down her back, pulling her to him.

 _Oh,God._ He's warm, and solid, and her tongue flicks across his lower lip, smooth and hot. His teeth nip slightly at her lip, and she's startled at how much she likes that. She opens her mouth against his on an impulse, and he _moans_ , a low noise coming from somewhere in his massive chest, and his tongue slips across hers, rough and hot—

The phone rings in the kitchen, startling them both. Steve jerks his head back and Peggy almost slips off the sink, heart pounding. "Christ Almighty," she gasps, and stares up at Steve, whose lips are swollen and reddened, face flushed, chest and throat blooming with color. "I—" The phone goes off again, and Peggy wriggles away from her spot between him and the sink. "I ought to pick that up."

"Right, yeah," he echoes, looking punch-drunk. "You—you should."

She scurries back down the hall and into the kitchen, heart still going a mile a minute, and picks up. "Hello?" she asks.

Phillips' gruff tones fill the receiver. " _Carter. It's me. I'm sending a car for you and one for Johnson. Barnes is getting touchy again and we don't want a repeat of the other day."_

"Don't bother sending one for Johnson. He's over here." Peggy shifts her weight, trying to quiet the extremely irritating sensation of heat between her legs—irritating because _now_ it's not wanted. "He came by to see how I was doing."

" _At midnight, huh?"_

Peggy bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut. _Damn._ "No, he dropped over around ten. When will the car arrive?" There's no point making excuses to Phillips.

The older man harrumphs on the other end as if he disapproves. " _Twenty minutes."_

"I'll let Agent Johnson know. Thank you." She hangs up before Phillips can badger her about having a junior agent over in her personal home at ten at night, and whirls around to see Steve, standing in the doorway, one hand awkwardly situated over his groin and the other casually planted on his elbow. She tries very hard not to think about whatever's hidden by the lower hand. "That was Phillips. Barnes is becoming disoriented and he's sending a car for us. We ought to get dressed."

"Right," says Steve. "I—uh, thanks for the birthday present."

Peggy feels heat creep up her face. "My pleasure," she says automatically, and bites her lip. "There should be clean clothes for you in the guest dresser and closet—"

"I know, I found them," he tells her, ducking his head a little. "I'll, uh. I'll just go and change."

"Let's hope Phillips doesn't recognize you without the beard," she says, slight anxiety welling up as he heads down the hallway. 

* * *

As it turns out, Phillips doesn't notice a thing at all. Steve, wearing a hat and his dummy spectacles, looks like any ordinary man in the brightly-lit halls, and Phillips takes them both down to the infirmary to Barnes at once, briefing them the whole way as Peggy thanks her stars for whatever in the human brain makes people unable to recognize others when a pair of glasses is added to a face.

"Stark tried to examine the arm and Barnes let him, but got fidgety and started acting funny…Stark's keeping his distance, but we're not sure what...moved him into a private room…had a slight issue with the food again, test results are still coming back…"

He pulls the door open, and Steve steps in first, then Peggy. Barnes is lying on his back at a forty-five degree angle, pale as a ghost in the lights overhead, hands clenching and un-clenching mechanically, over and over in their straps. His shirt's been removed, and he's only wearing a stained white undershirt.

"Bucky?" asks Peggy gently, and he turns, recognizing her voice. His eyes are strangely glassy. "How are you?"

"Carter," he says vaguely, and his eyes slide over to the man at her side.

His reaction is something none of them could have expected. He freezes, eyes locked onto Steve's, and starts moaning. High, drawn out, almost keening sounds tear out of his throat in some great distress or fear, and Phillips steps back in surprise.

"We'll handle it," says Steve quickly, and the other man takes a look at Barnes, then steps out.

"Bucky," says Peggy again, hurrying forward. "Easy. What is it?" God, had he recognized Steve?

"Don't," he whimpers, in between horrible noises. "Don't, not my arm, don't, _don't_ —"

Peggy looks up, at a loss. "I have no idea what—"

Steve reaches up. "Zola wore glasses," he says simply, and takes them off, setting them aside and his hat for good measure. "Hey, Bucky," he says simply, looking down at the other man.

Barnes chokes, staring up at Steve. "No," he says, either denial or shock, but unmistakable recognition spreads across his face. " _No—_ "

"Shh," says Peggy urgently. "Bucky. We need you to be quiet, all right?"

"Orders—" He's struggling, the tendons in his neck standing out, and he blinks as if he's not sure what he's seeing. "Orders—I got my orders—Sergeant B-Barnes—"

"Shit," says Steve, and shucks his coat off, too. "Peggy, can you unlock his arms?"

"You want me to do _what_ ," she says flatly.

"I can handle him. It's fine. Where are the keys?" Steve sets the coat aside and rolls his sleeves up, then approaches the bed while Peggy searches for the keys to the straps over Bucky's wrists. "Hey, pal," he says, hands out. The whites of Bucky's eyes are showing, terror written in every line of his face. "Been a while, huh?"

"I don't know you," spits Bucky, struggling to get free. "I _don't know you_! I don't—"

Peggy comes back with the key. "What's—"

"He's panicking," Steve says quietly, and reaches down, unlocking Bucky's flesh and blood wrist. "If you want to take a swing at me, go ahead," he tells him. "I won't fight you. No one's gonna hurt you."

Bucky yanks his arm free and sits up, his right arm still immobile, and swings a mean right hook directly into Steve's face. Peggy hears a crack, and steps forward in outrage, but Steve flings a hand out to stop her. "Don't tell him to stop," he gasps, and Bucky punches him again and again until he's winded, which comes surprisingly quickly for a man who's been injected with some form of super-soldier serum, but after all he hasn't eaten in days. He gasps for air, reeling, hunched over sideways and glaring at Steve, whose nose is bleeding and eye and cheek are both swelling rapidly to the angry red of a bruise signifying an orbital fracture, but who hasn't raised a hand to defend himself.

"I've struck my handler," Bucky monotones hoarsely, staring at Peggy. "I submit myself to disciplinary action, Director Carter."

She looks at Steve, at a loss. "What do I—"

"No, don't," says Steve with some difficulty. "Disciplining him will reinforce the pattern he's been indoctrinated into. Bucky, can you look at me?"

Bucky's eyes drag over to Steve, lingering longingly on Peggy's face. It's like a twisted form of _good cop, bad cop,_ Peggy thinks in distress as he fixes his eyes on Steve; a version where the prisoner sides with the officer beating him. "Yes," he says, flat and sullen.

"Do you know my name?"

Bucky's chest heaves again as he sucks in a breath, and looks away from Steve in defiance of his request. "Agent Joseph Johnson," he intones, looking like a stubborn child.

Steve shakes his head and lowers his voice. "No. My other name. You know it. You can say it. It's a secret; you, me, Stark, and Director Carter all know."

Bucky drags his eyes back to Steve, and Peggy sees tears gathered in them. He shakes his head. "No," he says again. " _No._ I don't know."

"Bucky—"

"Requesting disciplinary action," he repeats, looking back at Peggy.

"I really don't—"

Bucky's becoming more and more agitated. "Requesting _disciplinary action_!" He strains hard, his shoulders bulging, and tears his metal arm out of the cuff, lunging at Steve and gripping him by the shirt with both hands, desperate. "I've _struck my handler_ —"

"Bucky!" Peggy doesn't even think, just flies at him and grabs him by the shoulders, trying to tug him away from Steve. It's like trying to move a brick wall, even though his legs are still strapped down. He shakes Steve furiously. "Barnes, _stop—_ "

With one movement, Bucky shoves Peggy off him, and she crashes to the floor, hitting a chair and coming up against the legs. She rights herself quickly. " _God_ —no, don't, I'm fine—" –for Steve is about to haul off and punch the other man regardless of his earlier words.

Barnes is still frantic, struggling and thrashing. " _Requesting disciplinary_ _a_ —"

Peggy gets back up and seizes him by the hair, and it's like all the tension melts out of the man. He goes bonelessly limp, relief in his eyes, and lets go of Steve at once. "All right," says Peggy, unnerved by the reaction. "State typical disciplinary actions for the infractions you've committed."

He willingly rattles off: "Typical discipline for striking or disobeying a handler includes being beaten for five minutes, being stripped naked and immersed into freezing water for three minutes, or being wiped immediately. The Asset rarely disobeys. The Asset must not be allowed to disobey."

"Well, we’re not doing any of that," says Steve tersely, and Bucky's eyes snap back to his face in fear. "Peggy, let go of him."

She releases him, and he looks almost betrayed. It would be amusing if it wasn't so tragic. "We've got to put together some kind of program for him," she says, shaken. "We have to undo whatever this was—"

"Leaving him alone will undo some of it," Steve says. "But it won't rebuild who he was. It's…active work versus passive work. The active work is the hard part. He has to break out of the pattern."

"Can he _be_ who he was again?" Peggy looks down at the man in the bed, disheveled and angry, eyeing them both with distrust. She has her doubts, but Steve seems so sure.

"Yes. He did it after almost sixty years of being like this, but it took a long time and he still wasn't quite…the same. He can do it again now. He's just…" Steve rubs his good eye. "He just needs someone who cares about him to help him."

"I'm not sixty," says Bucky suddenly, eyes lighting back on Steve with confusion. "Am I?"

"No, you're not," Steve agrees. "You're…you're about thirty-three, I think. Yeah—you just turned thirty-three in March."

"March tenth," says Bucky, and looks at him. "When… was March?"

"Four months ago. It's July now. July fourth."

"July—" Bucky freezes, his neck tensing. "July fourth?"

"Yes. Quite early, it's half past one in the morning." Peggy glances from him to Steve: Steve looks as if he's afraid to say anything and incite another meltdown, but Bucky looks as if he's been punched.

There's a knock on the door, and Steve opens it to see a gangly, long-necked nurse nearly as tall as Steve in her pale green uniform, waiting with a tray in her hands containing her clipboard and a glass of greenish liquid. "Oh, Agent Johnson, Director Carter," she says, glancing over to Peggy and then over to the half-restrained, wild-eyed Bucky. She looks back at Steve, trepidation in her brown eyes. "I'm here with the probiotics? They thought we should try it again."

"Oh, for the digestive issues?" Peggy asks. "You needn't administer that yourself, if he scares you. We can do it."

"I'll supervise, so I can report back, then," she tells Peggy, relieved, and heads over to the side table, setting the tray down by Bucky. "Good morning, Bucky," she says, shooting him a look and a cautious smile. _Good,_ thinks Peggy, _the staff is taking my notes._

To both Peggy and Steve's shock, Bucky immediately relaxes and smiles back. "I remember you," he informs her. "Bea?"

The nurse looks pleasantly surprised. "That's me all right," she says, picking up the clipboard. Peggy watches her write down _patient alert, amiable attitude, remembers name_. "Beatrice Anderson. Hope you're not going to toss your cookies over _this_ uniform. I don't have any others to hand."

"Sorry," Bucky says. "Hey, is it really July fourth?"

"It sure is," says Bea. "Director, I can administer the probiotic after all, if you don't mind?"

"Of course," says Peggy, sitting back to watch how this plays out. She hasn't observed Barnes interact with anyone positively like this at all, and privately wishes she'd brought a notebook. Nurse Beatrice Anderson is about twenty-six and has the physique of a beanpole with the wiry look of her undoubtedly fearless ancestors— _beautiful_ certainly isn't a word anyone would use to describe the woman, but for some reason Barnes is behaving for her. Maybe he's just feeling guilty about getting sick across her skirt.

Bea picks up the glass and turns to Bucky. "All right. Slow sips this time. It tastes awful, but don't spit it out."

Bucky takes the glass in his right hand and tips it to his lips, sipping carefully. His nose wrinkles, but he dutifully swallows, one tiny amount at a time. "Not too bad," he announces, halfway through the glass.

"It's worse coming back up." Bea glances over at Steve as Bucky works on the rest of the liquid, and her eyes widen at the bruising on his face. "Gosh, Agent Johnson. Did he hit you?"

"He sure did," says Steve, tenderly examining his own face with his fingers. "I'll be okay, though." Bucky shoots him a mulish look over the rim of his cup.

"I can get you some ice, if you like." Bea sets her clipboard back on the tray and extends her hand out to Bucky for the glass—not too slowly, but not quickly enough to startle him, Peggy notices. "All done? How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he says, sounding surprised at himself. "What do I do now?"

"Well, don't lay flat on your back. We want all the little fellas you just swallowed to hang out in your gut for a while so you can digest food. If you keep this down for two hours, we'll give you some pudding. Any flavor you're particular to?" Bea scribbles more notes down: _patient consumed all probiotics, no adverse effects._

"Tapioca," he says immediately, and Steve blinks in surprise. "I know it's—like eating fish eyeballs, but I like it."

Bea laughs. "Tapioca it is. I'll let them know."

Bucky peers up at her. "Can we—do the hand game?"

"I think I have time, sure," she says cheerfully, and sits down on the bed—again, slowly enough, Peggy notes, to let Bucky put enough space between them. She interlaces her fingers together, back to back, and Bucky copies her, watching like a hawk as she presses her thumbs together flat on top, and begins to go through a nursery rhyme with the accompanying finger movements that Peggy hasn't seen or heard since she was a little girl. Bucky mimics her intently, metal and flesh fingers wiggling together as she recites:

"Here is the church—here is the steeple. Open the doors, and see all the people. Close the doors and they all pray. Open the doors and they all go away."

Bucky actually grins when she finishes, and looks back up at her. "Last time you said you'd teach me the piggies."

"I sure did. All right. Give me your hand." He gives her his right hand, and she turns it over. "This little piggy went to market," she tells him, tugging on his thumb, "and _this_ little piggy stayed home," that's his index finger, still grimy, "and _this_ little piggy had roast beef," his middle finger, "and _this_ little piggy had none," she wiggles his ring finger, "and _this_ little piggy said _wee, wee, wee, wee_ all the way home!" She takes his pinky finger and jerks it back and forth gently to the words _wee, wee!_ and Bucky actually _laughs_ before snatching his hand out of hers with another giggle and shooting her a look very much like a ticklish child.

Peggy's astonished. Why, oh _why_ had she not grabbed her notebook? "Nurse Anderson—I would like to speak to you alone, if you please. Just for a moment. I know you have work to do."

"Oh, sure, Director," says Bea easily. Bucky goes uncertain, all the fun drained out of his face, but Bea pats his hand. "Next time…" she says, as if coaching him.

He perks back up. "Next time, what will you do?"

She screws her face up, as if thinking. "Next time, I'll teach you Hey, Diddle, Diddle. Is that all right?"

"That's all right." He grins at her again, leaning back on his bed.

"Good. I'll talk to Director Carter now and see you later, okay?" Bea takes up her tray and clipboard with the empty glass, and waits until Bucky nods.

"Okay," he says, pacified as the two women duck out of the room.

Peggy turns to the nurse once they're in the corridor outside. They're both in sensibly-heeled oxfords, but Bea towers over her, and she has to look up into her face. "Nurse Anderson, how long have you been in contact with Barnes on your rotations?" she asks.

"Oh—only about three days, I think," Bea says, looking nervous. "Have I done something wrong?"

"No, not at all." Peggy smiles. "You'll have to forgive me, I didn't clear the medical department—you have a background in psychiatry?"

"Gosh, no, ma'am," says Bea, shaking her head, the fluffy clouds of brown curls in front of her cap bouncing slightly. "No, I'm just an RN. I would have liked to—but no. Standard nursing. I wanted to be—well, a midwife, but I joined the ANC in '41 and after the war was over I applied with the Department of Defense, and I got caught up in, uh, a sort of mass migration over here to work for SHIELD."

Peggy can feel her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "But—you must have some sort of professional training in combat fatigue. That's clear from your interactions with Barnes."

"No, ma'am," Bea insists. "It's only—" She presses her mouth into a line, and looks over Peggy's shoulder.

Peggy feels curious, and sympathetic: the woman looks as if she's remembering something she doesn't want to. "Only what, Nurse Anderson?"

"I had a beau," she says, very softly. "Joe Banks. He was—he was in the Marines. Joined in '41, which is why I decided to join the Army Nurse Corps—I thought maybe if we both worked together, even if we were on opposite side of the earth, then maybe it might be easier when it was all over and done." She blinks and brings her attention back to Peggy's face. "Joe was taken prisoner in '42 by the Japanese, in the Philippines.  He only got free when Camp O'Donnell was liberated, you see. When the Rangers found him—" Bea cuts herself off, choked up. "I'm sorry. Anyway, he was sent back home, but he couldn't—I mean, he wasn't—"

"He had combat fatigue, you mean," says Peggy, understanding.

"Yes, ma'am. His mother hadn't ever seen anything like it. She didn't know what to do with him. He'd sleep under his bed with his back to the wall, he'd burst out into a fight if someone dropped something or loud sounds went off. Sometimes he'd forget he was home, or he couldn't remember things. He'd have tremors and—and he wet the bed, and sometimes he'd go back and forth between crying like a baby for hours or tossing his cookies into the toilet all day long."

Peggy reaches out and gently touches the nurse on the arm. "You mean his mother was caring for him all that time?"

"Yes, until I could come over." Bea's past being choked up, she's simply straightforward now. "I'd drop by every night if I could, and take care of him to give his mother a break. Joe—he knew who I was, most of the time, and he got better when I was there. He wasn't a coward," she adds suddenly with some heat. "Those damn Army doctors said he was a coward. He _wasn't_. I'd read to him—Peter Rabbit or whatever I could find, simple things he could pay attention to, you know—and he'd calm down for a bit, listen. He was just so wrecked by what had happened to him. I'd play cat's cradle and checkers with him and walk around the backyard, and by the winter of '45 he was so much better. Not back to how he'd been, I don't think that would have been possible without magic—but he could sure carry on a conversation as long as you didn't say certain things, and he'd stopped having outbursts, though he did have times where he got tremors and couldn't remember things."

"What happened?"

Bea's face goes still. "His mother sent him to an institution," she says quietly. "I couldn't do a thing about it. They'd promised her they could cure him in a month with electro-shock therapy. I told her not to, but she wouldn't listen. She wanted her son back whole and well as he used to be and that was what she wanted to hear, not—not me, you know, saying it would take a long time. And I think he was desperate, too: that's why he went."

Peggy swallows, her mouth gone dry. "And—did the electroshock cure him?"

"His heart stopped two weeks in while they were doing it," Bea says, lips a little pale and eyes glittering with tears. "They couldn't revive him. He died. His mother had the guts to blame _me_ for it, and I moved to Virginia and never spoke to her again."

"Here," says Peggy, handing the woman a handkerchief. Bea dabs her eyes. "How awful. I'm so sorry."

"They just—" Bea sniffs and blows her nose. "Men like Joe need a good solid routine, and some people to talk to who aren't there to poke and prod and shout. Small things to look forward to. Fresh air and comfort and some good old-fashioned understanding and patience. They get better in their own time. You can't rush stuff like that, Director. You just can't."

"No, you cannot," Peggy agrees. "Your schedule—you're in every day?"

"Every day but Sunday," Bea says.

"Good. I'm going to request that you be put on a daily rotation with Barnes. If his behavior improves, I'll personally ensure you have the opportunity to complete a course in psychiatry, so that you can become certified and easily supervise and train others in the field: God knows after this war's done we'll have more poor young men in similar states. Does that sound satisfactory, Nurse Anderson?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," Bea breathes, stunned. "I'll—I'll just go and get that ice for Agent Johnson."

"Please do. And keep the handkerchief, thank you." Peggy steps back into the room as Bea's sensible shoes clack away down the hall. Inside, Steve is still sitting with Bucky, the latter still unrestrained from the waist up and the pair of them seemingly in a deep conversation.

"Director," says Bucky, glancing over at Peggy. "Bea didn't…infraction?" He seems slightly woozy.

"Not at all," Peggy says. "I like her very much and I'm going to have her come in every day to see you."

"Oh, good," says Bucky, blinking.

"He's exhausted," says Steve gently, one hand curling around Bucky's shoulder. "No food in days and he just tried to get into a fight. We've just been talking about some things he remembers."

"'M not…tired," Bucky says, forcing his eyes open. "Hey, Johnson?"

"Yeah?"

Barnes' blue eyes narrow slightly, slight amusement in them. "Happy birthday," he says with perfect clarity, and leans back against the bed, slipping back to sleep.

"He _does_ know you," Peggy says. "Why on earth—"

"It's complicated," Steve hurries to explain as he draws the blanket up over Bucky's still shirt-clad chest (really, she's got to speak to someone about bathing him). "He was reprogrammed to forget that he was friends with Captain America, that he fought with the Commandos, that he's American. He wasn't programmed into forgetting things like tapioca pudding or his birthday or my birthday, because the Soviets and Hydra didn't know any of that. You can't brainwash someone into forgetting something _you_ don't know they know. He's still not willing to come right out and say he knows Steve Rogers—the impulse to tamp that down is still too strong—but saying he knows what my birthday is? That's him saying he knows exactly who I am." There are tears in Steve's eyes, and Peggy notices forehead lines she hadn't before. "He knows me," he repeats, brushing a lock of greasy hair out of Barnes' face.

"We ought to dim the lights and let him sleep a bit," says Peggy. "I'll go interrogate Stark and see what on earth he was doing, and I want you to compile a list to put on the door."

"A list?"

"Yes, of things that set him off or upset him. The glasses for one—certain words, don't let anyone speak Russian in there, that sort of thing. We'll slowly introduce them back in once he's more stable, but for now, we'll avoid them."

"Will do," says Steve. "Tell Howard I said hello."

"I will." Peggy leans down and lets herself rest a hand on Bucky's shoulder, then straightens and heads for the door, dimming the lights as she goes.

* * *

Howard hasn't shaved in days and looks as if he's crawled out of a dumpster when Peggy reaches the lab and shoulders her way in. "Oh, hello," he says grouchily, gulping down coffee. "You having fun up there with Barnes?"

"What were you doing to his arm?" Peggy demands, skipping the niceties. "He was practically having a meltdown by the time we got in."

"I was trying to get a metal sample. He started…shaking and I thought he was going to piss his pants." Stark sags in his seat. "I didn't mean to scare him. Honest to God, Peg."

Peggy presses her fingers to her temples and sighs deeply. "I'm sorry. We're working on a list of things that set him off. It'll be a bit before he trusts anyone to get near enough to work on the arm."

"I didn't expect him to be like…that," Howard says. "You do know I have the CIA practically shoving cash at me to feed them information about him, right?"

Oh, right. The bloody CIA. "I expected nothing less," Peggy mutters, sitting down in the other chair.

"At least, I'm about ninety percent sure it's the CIA," he continues. "Jarvis had to stop answering the door past midnight. I'm working on a better security measure for the house. Maybe an electric doorbell. Zap the bastards in the—"

"Very cloak-and-dagger of them," she says. "You've told Phillips?"

"Of course I did. Wouldn't want him getting antsy. I'm just worried next thing you know my face is going to be plastered across the Examiner with 'ALLEGED COMMUNIST' in big black print above it if I don't comply." Howard rubs his eyes. "You haven't gotten any weird calls?"

"Not as of yet, but I expect to get at least a few before this is over. They're already withholding every psychiatrist in a hundred-mile range, but I've found a solution to that."

"Really?"

"Her name is Nurse Beatrice Anderson and she's experienced in dealing with combat fatigue. A blessing in disguise."

"Nurse Bea?" Howard frowns. "You mean the one that looks like a giraffe with a perm?"

"Honestly, Howard," Peggy snaps. "Not every woman on the planet is five foot six with an hourglass figure. She's a perfectly lovely person and she'll be dealing with Barnes one-on-one for as long as it takes him to get adjusted, so if you want to get anywhere near him or his arm you had better learn to behave."

"Sorry, sorry," he says, putting his hands up in surrender. "I'll be on my best behavior. Promise."

* * *

"Carter." Phillips is waiting in the hall when Peggy emerges from the lab. "We need to have a conversation neither of us are going to enjoy."

"What?" Peggy feels the blood drain from her face. "Has something happened with the CIA?"

"No, nothing like that." He waves a hand and sighs. "It's you and Johnson."

"Me and Johnson?" Peggy's gut freezes. "What do you—"

"Look, I know people can get close in situations where you were in a life-or-death sort of thing together. I really do. I understand. But you might want to discourage the man a little."

"I'm sure I don't—" Peggy can't even bring herself to bluster appropriately, and Phillips shuts her down with a shake of his head.

"Sticking together at work to watch over someone you extracted from behind enemy lines is one thing. A junior agent visiting the personal home of a director of SHIELD at ten at night is quite another, and I think you know that, and I think you know if you were a man and Johnson was a cute little secretary with blond curls I'd be pretty ornery about the situation too." He's gruff and straightforward, and he doesn't look at her, which gives her the opportunity to get her face straight. "There's a reason we don't allow officers and enlisted folks to fraternize in the Army, and there's a reason subordinates shouldn't get friendly with their bosses."

"I suppose you think I should have stayed in Los Angeles and quit my job as an agent to get married to Daniel Sousa," she says, more frostily than she intends to. The hall is lit with fluorescents and there are no windows, making her feel as if she's in a surreal place somewhere underground where nothing she says will see the light of day.

Phillips sighs. "Now, don't go putting words in my—"

"Do you honestly think I'm misusing my own power and… _using_ that man?" she asks, stopping in her tracks and turning on him. "Do you think I'm that sort of woman?"

"No, I do not—"

"And do you think that Joseph Johnson would for a single moment cross any line I lay down?"

"Peggy—"

"The answer is no. No, he would not." Peggy's nearly furious at this point, fists clenched at her sides. There's no going back now: the words spill out before she can stop them. "And you know very well why: you nearly said it yourself a while back."

Phillips gapes at her for a moment, then takes a step back against the wall. "You mean to tell me… that's _Steve Rogers_."

A horrid lump rises up behind Peggy's throat. "Yes," she manages to say around it. "Yes. He is."

Phillips staggers onto a bench and sags there, shocked. "I thought…my eyes aren't as good as they were, and he looks _older_ …"

"He—he only recently made his way back," she manages, head spinning. "He had a devil of a time. I can't—I can't tell you everything, but nobody must know, do you understand?"

"No. Of course not. Christ, imagine what the CIA would do with him. Who else knows?"

"Howard—and Barnes. He recognized him today but he won't call him by name or admit it—he just wished him a happy birthday." Peggy shuts her eyes, fighting the tears. "God. I was so afraid to tell you."

"I'm the director of an intelligence organization, Carter. I can keep a goddamn secret." Phillips runs a hand down his face. "You—you let him know, whatever he needs, I'll handle it. Anything he wants. If I can make it happen, I will. You—will you tell him that?"

"Yes," says Peggy, wiping her eyes. "I will."

A peculiar expression slips across Phillips' face. "So you—you and he, I assume you're—"

"Oh, so _now_ it’s perfectly all right," she sputters, exasperated, and stalks off down the corridor, trying not to laugh in spite of herself. " _Now_ you have no issue with fraternization, do you, Chester?"

"My regards to the happy couple!" he calls after her, laughing as she practically runs back to the lift, ears on fire the whole way.


	14. August 20, 1950

"Get up, comrade."

The man rolls to one side, squinting up into the steely eyes of the middle-aged woman standing over his cot. "Yes, comrade," he says hoarsely, swinging his legs to the side and sitting up. "Have you orders for me?" His voice has lost its original accent, sounding far more Russian even speaking its mother tongue: this seems to please the matron. They speak English here in the Academy; it helps the girls learn.

"Yes. The new class is ready." She turns, walking to the door. "Belova will accompany you down."

"Yes, comrade," says the man, standing and turning to dress. He has no name anymore. Once he did. Now he is only called _Uchitel_ , or _Uchi_ by the most daring of the young ladies: they like to make nicknames even though it is not allowed. He does not mind it. It is not his duty to punish for infractions. That belongs to others above him.

 _Teacher_ , his only title, his only name, and this is what he teaches: How to load a gun. How to walk unseen in crowds. How to know if you're being followed. How to kill another person, eight different ways; how to get into any place you like, how to extract information from another, how to get what you need and how to get out. _Shpionazh._

He puts on his dull gray cap and his drab gray uniform and walks out of his room. Belova is waiting for him at the top of the stairs. "Uchi," she says. "You look more long-faced than you have ever looked." Yes, she is one of the daring ones, is Belova: she even has a second name for him, one she claims is a great secret, one she only ever calls him on the rare occasions when they are alone.

"Yes," he answers, approaching her, "I heard Yelena Belova allowed the Asset to escape her grasp and it has made me very thoughtful."

Pain flickers across her face, quickly replaced by a smooth mask of indifference. "It is no matter. He will kill them all and return to us."

"As I hear you have been saying for months," he says dryly, following her down the stairs. The stairs and the walls have been gutted and stripped of beauty: the silk wallpaper, the fine carvings on the rails, the decorations in the molding. All chipped and gouged clean, all made functional instead of beautiful. He wonders for a moment why the place could not be both: it would reflect the purpose of the Academy more sufficiently—but that's a poetic thought, and there is no sentimentality allowed within these walls. "And yet, he has not returned."

"He _will_ ," she says through her teeth, and opens the ballroom door on the first floor. Forty young girls, all between the ages of eight and nine, the smallest in the front and the tallest in the back, turn and face them, eyes calm and faces set. They are all in their uniforms: white blouses, dark wool dresses, white collars, hair braided. Their hair is the only feature that stands out in the crowd: black, brown, mouse-brown, blond, auburn, red. "Good morning, girls," she says brightly.

" _Good morning, Comrade Belova_ ," they all say in unison, intonations all identical. Once it might have unnerved him, the perfect recitation: it does so no longer.

"This is Comrade Uchitel."

" _Good morning, Comrade Uchitel."_

He nods at them. "Good morning. Today, we will learn how to take apart and put back together again a Kalashnikov rifle." He crosses to the table along the wall and picks up the rifle lying there. "This is an AK model, 1947; it uses M43 bullets. These are 123 grain, boat-tail bullets with a copper-plated steel jacket, a steel core, and lead between the core and the jacket. There are no bullets here today to show you; we are concerned only with the machinations of the rifle itself. It is eight hundred and seventy millimeters long, with a barrel of four hundred fifteen millimeters. Empty, it weighs about three and a half kilograms—just a little more than you, there, _malen'kiy—_ " he nods at a very slight girl of eight, and she grins, showing him her missing front tooth.

He shows them how to take it apart, how to clean it: he runs them through drills and times them on how quickly they can take it apart and put it back together again. It takes about an hour of class time, and when he is satisfied he hands them back over to Belova, who orders them all to go change for physical education.

"You do not mean what you said about the Asset," she says in the hall as they walk together.

"No," he agrees. "He might come back." _But I doubt it,_ says his mind. "I heard you were ill a few weeks ago."

Her eyes flicker to his. "I was. I am better now, thank you, comrade."

As much as Uchitel enjoys needling her, he does know when to stop: and he knows very well why she was ill. "Did they terminate?" he asks quietly, stopping in a corner of the hall where he knows no bug can pick up a word: the signals overlap here and turn everything to static in the ears of the MGB.

"Yes," she says flatly, stopping with him. She knows about the _glukhoye mesta_ as well as he does. "Of course they did."

He knows better than to ask who was responsible. Often the Widows are sent to seduce as well as kill, and the unfortunate leavings from such encounters are dealt with in precisely one way. "I hear the MGB is considering implementing a sterilization program," he says. "Much easier and quicker to deal with."

"And irreversible," adds Belova with some bitterness. "To remind you, of course, that you are only ever good for death and destruction; that you cannot bring life from your body like ordinary women." She covers her mouth, looking shocked at herself. "That was treasonous," she mutters.

"As if you have ever minded that," he mutters, making her smile a little. "Belova and her heart, always fighting with her head."

She draws closer, looking up at him then, and she says, "Oh, Mikhail… what will we do if they find out about Anya?"

* * *

"Carter, you have a minute?"

Peggy looks up from her desk and mentally calculates: it's four in the afternoon, Steve is still typing out memos for her outside the office, Bucky is upstairs with Nurse Anderson, and Stark is probably sitting in on what Peggy's privately started thinking of as Unofficial Therapy to let Bucky get used to him. "I think so, Phillips. What is it?"

"Actually, you'll need to come to the conference room," he says, his head still poking around the door. "Emergency meeting."

"What?" Peggy gets up, grabbing for a memo pad and a pen. "All right, then—" She follows him out to the hall, shooting a confused look at Steve, who shrugs as she passes, then goes back to typing.

He's still living alone in his flat, and has been for the past month. Realizing Phillips knew who he was had sent him into a bit of a moral panic about visiting her, and no matter what how she coaxed or asked politely or invited, he refused to go over to her home unless it was absolutely necessary. He does call sometimes, shy and hesitant over the line (and Peggy's had him check the phone for bugs, so it's a perfectly secure line, too), but he won't say anything racier than "I miss you" and she's about to burst with frustration. It appears old habits die hard. Very hard.

The conference room is packed with various high-level agents when she comes in, and they stand when she enters, to her annoyance. "No, sit," she says, and takes her seat at the head of the table as Phillips goes to stand by the corkboard, shuffling through papers.

"Right," says Phillips. "I'll be brief and to the point. Three years ago—and you'll forgive me, Carter, for bringing this up—Agent Jack Thompson was shot in Los Angeles. He was in possession of a file, if you gentlemen recall, that was supposedly proof of Director—then Agent—Carter committing criminal acts during the course of the war when she worked for the SOE. He'd obtained it at the request of Vernon Masters."

"Yes, a file that was a useless pack of lies," Peggy says coldly. "I told him as such."

"Apparently it wasn't," says Phillips. "Useless, I mean. He was in possession of that file at the time he was shot, and when our men searched the room after extracting him and getting him to a hospital, the file was gone. Someone must have wanted it badly enough to shoot an agent and leave him for dead."

Peggy's heart slides into her belly. "But—but it's not true," she says, aghast. "I was never even stationed in France, where the events supposedly took place—anyone can look at my records!"

"No, your records certainly do not reflect this supposed incident." Phillips holds a hand up. "But we don't know who shot Thompson. The description he gave once he'd recovered was vague, and he quit working for the SSR after he was discharged from the hospital."

"So you're saying that someone stole this fake file and we're only now hearing about it?" asks another agent.

"Donnell, I don't sit here and give everyone your personal records on a daily basis either," says Phillips, and the agent slumps down in his seat. "It was strictly need-to-know. It's only come up now because we have an insider at the CIA and they've informed me that somehow headquarters has gotten wind of the file's existence and they have an idea of what's in it."

A sigh goes up around the room. "Are they trying to blackmail me, then?" Carter asks stiffly.

"I believe they might try. If they can twist it to get you framed as a war criminal, they won't need to bother making you a Communist, and they can get their hands on Barnes."

"What do we do, sir?" asks another agent.

"Find out who the hell shot Thompson for starters. Then find out what they did with the file. We can't let that fall into the wrong hands. Even a falsified document is dangerous. I want a team sent to find Thompson as soon as possible. Gabreski, Donnell, and O'Malley: you're up."

"I'll see if I can't work anything out from the statement he gave," Peggy says. "If someone stole that file, there's a chance I could recognize them. It's a long shot, but it might be worth something."

"You'll have to go down to Archives for that, Director," says Agent O'Malley. "Good luck. I heard it's already disorganized as an antique shop in Queens."

"Agent Brown is very particular about his methods," Phillips interjects, "and he has good reason to be. Carter, just send someone else down to get the file. I'd like you to stay where I can see you for the present."

"I will," she says, and stands up. "Good day, gentlemen, and good luck."

* * *

"Oh, hey, Director." Steve looks up over his glasses as she marches back to her office. "Meeting went okay?"

"Dreadfully. I need you to run an errand for me," she says quickly, averting her eyes from his snugly-fitting white dress shirt and waistcoat. "Down to Archives. There's a file I need to look at, containing a statement from Agent Jack Thompson. Date should be 1947, June or July, Los Angeles. He was shot and gave a statement as to who shot him, and I want to find out who it was."

"Why was he shot?" Steve's already half out of his seat, but she shakes her head.

"It's not urgent, you can wait until you're done with the memos. Someone shot him and stole a file purporting to incriminate me in war crimes. The CIA's apparently caught on, and Phillips thinks they might use it as an angle to get me out of the way so they can get their hands on Bucky."

"War crimes," says Steve flatly, eyes narrowed.

"Oh, for heaven's sake. It's a falsified file." Feeling exasperated, she stomps to her office door.

"Wait—I'm supposed to update you on Barnes—" He sounds apologetic, and she stops just because she feels she owes it to him. "He's still refusing to shower, but Nurse Anderson got him to at least get a sponge bath today."

Peggy sighs. "Hydrophobia. I'm not surprised, especially after he mentioned they used water immersion and spraying as a punishment. Anything else?"

"No. Sorry." Steve's eyes are almost sad, as if he's upset he couldn't give her more news. "I'll just—I'll go get that file."

"Make it quick. It's already four-thirty, and Brown goes home at five." She steps insider her office.

"Brown?" Steve's already putting his jacket back on.

"The agent in charge of Archives. Oh, you'll meet him soon enough. Just don't get lost."

* * *

Steve takes the elevator down to the very lowest level, and emerges into a dimly lit hall, arrows painted on the floor. He knows the building itself is brand new, but something about the place still feels old: probably the yellow lights along the walls. It reminds him of the War Room in London, subterranean brick and stone and concrete, and he feels almost at home as he walks along.

There's a sign reading ARCHIVES hanging from the ceiling, with an arrow pointing right, so he follows the sign and comes out a pair of double doors into an enormous…storage facility, shelves on shelves of boxes, folders, files, papers, film reels and projectors, metal boxes locked shut and covered in dust and rusty. Some of it looks older than he is. "Hello?" he calls out, inching down the aisle. "Anyone down here?"

There's no answer, but Steve can see something further down the room, coming from the left: a patch of light spread out on the floor—and he can smell cigarettes. Someone's definitely down here. He heads toward the light and turns left, and finds who he's looking for.

The light's coming from inside what has to be a utility closet, the interior stacked to the gills with files and papers. There's a desk crammed into the closet, upon which sits more paper and pencils and pens, the desk lamp that's emanating the incandescent glow, and two pairs of shoes, crossed at the ankle. The shoes are attached to feet, and the feet are attached to legs, and the rest of the man is shrouded in shadow, smoke wafting out of the gloom.

"Hi," says Steve, trying not to cough. "Are you Agent Brown?"

"Who's asking?" The man leans forward, taking his feet off the desk and peering at Steve from under a shock of light brown hair. He's maybe in his late thirties, lanky, with fine, high cheekbones and a sharp jaw, a thin mouth, and a voice that seems deeper than it should be. Both his sleeves are rolled up, his arms and fingers stained with ink, and a cigarette dangles out of the corner of his mouth. His thick glasses magnify his eyes to an almost comical degree, which is the only thing keeping him from looking like a detective on the silver screen.

"Agent Johnson, from upstairs," says Steve. "Director Carter sent me."

"Director Carter!" says Agent Brown, startled out of his suspicion, and stabs his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray on his desk. "Yeah, I know about you. You're the guy who went to Korea with her and nabbed that POW who had his brain turned into mush by the Russkies, aren't you?"

"That's me." Steve crosses his arms. "So are you Agent Brown or not?"

"Yeah, yeah," says Brown, unfolding himself from behind the desk. "Just call me Gene." He tilts his head back to look at Steve and grins. "Jesus. You a linebacker in college?" Behind the thick lenses, his eyes are piercing, as if he can see right through Steve and out the other side.

"Nah," says Steve, slightly uncomfortable under Brown's hazel, all-knowing gaze. "Art student."

"Art student," Brown echoes. "Fascinating. Well, what does Carter want?"

Finally, back to business. "She's looking for a file on an Agent Jack Thompson. He was shot in '47 and gave a statement after they patched him up. She wants the statement."

Brown frowns. "Where was he shot?"

"Uh, I don't know. The arm, maybe? Though it was an assassin, so maybe—"

"No, I mean location on the map, where was he shot."

"Oh. Los Angeles." Steve trails after the other man as he heads for the shelves, down three and up the aisle, muttering to himself. "Is everything usually this…messy?"

"There is a method," says Brown with great dignity as he yanks out a rusted box of film reels from a shelf marked _A-F. C. 45-49_ , "to my madness. If the place was organized like a library, anyone could find anything."

"Job security and information security?" asks Steve, beginning to understand.

"You have no idea how critically underfunded this department is," Brown says, digging through the box. "No, not here. Thompson with an H or Tomson with no H?"

"With an H," says Steve, and Brown grumbles, shoves everything back into the box and jams it back on the shelf. "How long you been working for SHIELD?"

"Since it was the SSR," he says, moseying down the aisle. "Joined in '41. Couldn't join the Army 'cause I can't see worth a damn. Figured this was just as good. Had a degree in history with an undergrad in bookkeeping—" His fingers close around a box and he pulls it out, rifling through the papers inside again. "Nope. You're sure it's Jack, J-A-C-K?"

"Pretty sure," Steve tells him.

Brown puffs his cheeks out and sighs. "You're sure he was shot in L.A.?"

"Absolutely." Steve checks his watch as Brown moves off down the aisle. It's almost five, and he's sure Peggy is probably wondering where he is with the file. A slight stab of longing at the thought of her locking up and catching the bus home alone hits him, and not for the last time he wishes he was able to just drop by as he used to.

That had all changed when she'd told him that Phillips had worked it out, and now every time he thought about being alone with her he nearly broke out in a cold sweat. Try as he might, he couldn't get the idea that he'd be doing something dirty and immoral out of his head, not even when he tried to remember how Natasha had spoken about intimacy and sex during one of their many talks on the subject. It was one thing to be jerked into the twenty-first century from the twentieth, but quite another to get used to the standards of the twenty-first and go back to 1950. _Whiplash_ would be a good word to use to describe it.

Nat had made so much sense. _"It's fine, Rogers. Look—you're just operating on the axis of consensual and non-consensual, instead of, I don't know, marital and non-marital. People don't think like that anymore. Well, some do, but they're all boomers. Mostly."_

 _"Hey, I'm a boomer,"_ he'd said with pretended offense, and she'd laughed at him.

 _"Is that what they're calling a guy born in 1918 now? To qualify as a baby boomer you'd have to have actually had babies, right?"_  she'd teased, pretending to be obtuse, and he'd groaned and covered his face. " _No, I'm kidding. You have to take your time with stuff. Nobody's gonna actually judge you for waiting till you're ready. Especially not you. I mean, you're Captain America."_

 _"Yeah, well, who everyone thinks I am and who I actually am are kinda different,"_ he'd said.

" _Don't I know that feeling,"_ she'd said, looking at her nails.

Steve doesn't know what Nat would say if she'd known he'd had Peggy Carter pinned up on a sink with his tongue in her mouth and managed to embarrass himself with the most inconvenient hard-on he'd ever had in his life in the process. Probably laugh and give him a high-five. Phillips—cold sweat prickles at his neck again in spite of Peggy telling him over and over that Phillips is _fine_ with it. He can't quite believe that. 

Okay, _maybe_ he's just using the fact that Phillips was his old CO and clinging to his fear to avoid any further progress with Peggy because he's actually just terrified, and _maybe_   he's just a huge coward who for all Natasha Romanoff's help still can't bring himself to even think about having actual sex yet. Steve groans and rubs his eyes. It's bad enough remembering her nipples poking through the nightgown, brushing against his chest—

And there's another goddamn hard-on, starting in his trousers. Steve clenches his quads and waits for the blood to disperse as he tries to think about multiplication tables and color theory and literally anything else but Peggy's breasts.

"Hey, Johnson!" The call comes down the aisle, far away, and Steve turns, thankful for the distraction.

"Brown? You found something?" He starts jogging down the aisle, coming upon Agent Gene Brown in a pile of files, waving one triumphantly.

"You didn't tell me he was currently inactive," he says as if it's all Steve's fault, and shoves the file at him. "This what you're looking for?"

Steve opens it. It's definitely what Peggy wanted: the sworn statement, transcript and all, medical records, and almost none of it is redacted. "Perfect. This is it. Thanks, I'll—"

The doors at the very end of the building clang open, and Steve jerks to attention, Brown turning his head in confusion. "What—"

"Shh," says Steve. Something's wrong. Nobody is calling out to ask if anyone's down there, and he can make out soft footsteps on the concrete—at least five men, if he's not mistaken, and he can smell gunpowder. He reaches out and grabs Gene by the arm, pulling him behind the shelf and crouching there. He holds a finger to his lips, and Agent Brown nods, catching on without saying a word.

Steve stuffs the file beneath his shirt as quietly as he can. He doesn't have a sidearm, so he mouths at Brown: _you have a gun?_

Brown shakes his head. _No,_ he mouths back. _In my office._

The office is a hundred feet away. Not an option. Steve rethinks the approach: there's a fire exit at the other end of the room, but they won't be able to make it there without being seen.

Brown reaches up, seizes a film reel off the shelf above his head, turns, and lobs it like a football player over the shelves. It sails in a wide arc and crashes against the far wall, clattering to the ground, and Steve listens as the footsteps hurry to the far side of the room and drags Brown along with him, hurrying as fast as he can go to the other exit.

They're just passing the last of the shelves when Brown trips on a loose box and kicks it, sending it flying. The box scrapes along the concrete, and Steve grabs him again, pulling him back and to the right as the footsteps get louder. "Hey," says one unfamiliar voice, very close by and drawing nearer, "I heard—"

That's all Brown needs. He's picks up a metal file-box by the handle, pulls it in close, and swings it with his whole body as the speaker rounds the corner, bashing it straight into his face with all his strength. The man crumples like a house of cards, and both Steve and Brown hit the floor as gunfire erupts, tearing through the folders above their heads and sending paper fragments raining down like confetti.

"Shit," says Brown, flat on his stomach as he army-crawls toward Steve. The other man is still motionless on the floor, but Brown had the presence of mind to steal his gun.

"That loaded?" Steve shouts over the gunfire, still flat on his stomach.

"Yeah!" Brown rolls over to his back, waits until the shooting stops for a moment, and sits up, aiming and squeezing off all nine shots through the shelves. There's a heavy thump, and he rolls back to where Steve is, folding his knees up to his chest. "Got _someone_ ," he mutters. "Shouldn't have used the whole clip."

"That's two down, three to go," Steve says.

"Who the hell are these guys?" Brown tosses the useless handgun to the side.

"I don't know, but they're shooting at us, so they're the bad guys."

"Oh, thanks," says Brown sardonically. "Very help—"

A man in black swings around directly in front of them, aiming a sidearm, and without thinking, Steve grabs the only thing in reach, a heavy, steel lid to a file box. He grips the handle and uses it as a shield, covering both himself and Brown, his fingers and arm muscles reacting on instinct, years of muscle memory springing back to life. The bullets ricochet off the metal and Steve springs up the second the clip empties, swinging the lid and knocking the man to the ground with enough force to crack bone.

"Holy shit," says Brown, gaping. "You're like—"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve mutters. "Get up and find something to—"

"Behind you!" Brown points, eyes wide, and Steve turns just in time to see the last two men advancing, these two with Thompson submachine guns and wearing black from head to toe: knit caps, gloves, balaclavas across their lower faces just like the other three.

Steve switches his grip and spreads his legs apart. "Put the guns down," he says, and one of the men snorts incredulously. "All right. Have it your way."

He lunges for the one on the right, tears the rifle out of his hand, and brings his foot up, slamming down just above the knee and eliciting a scream from the guy as his tendons rip apart and his kneecap shatters. He goes down, and Steve turns just a hair too late as the other guy lurches toward him and stabs him in the side with a Bowie knife, up to the hilt.

"Oh, come _on,_ " Steve mutters, fingers instinctively clenched around the handle where it protrudes from between two of his ribs. He ignores the searing pain and swings the lid around again, but the other guy dodges. There's blood. There's a lot of blood. Brown is shouting from somewhere behind him, and the guy squares up—

There's a terrific smashing sound, and the man in black crumples to the ground, revealing Peggy Carter, standing behind the man. She's in her stocking feet and disheveled, wielding a box of film reels, and her eyes go at once to Steve, then to the knife still sticking out of his side.

Steve wants to kiss her. She's never looked so beautiful in all his life. "I thought you went home at five," he wheezes.

"Agent Brown, please call security forces," she says tightly, and steps over the man she struck, crouching and rolling him over, then sticking a pencil under the soft part of his jaw. "Now," she says softly, looking directly into his dazed eyes, "you're going to tell me exactly who you're working for and what you're doing in the SHIELD Archives, or this pencil is going to take a fun trip directly through your jaw, your tongue, and your palate. I'm sure if I try very hard I could even reach your brain, but we'll have to see about that, won't we?"

"CIA. File," he gasps, the whites of his eyes showing. One side of his head looks funny, oddly soft, and bleeding.

"What file?"

Steve lets Brown get him on the floor and watches the man race to his office. He feels very woozy, and he fights the urge to yank the knife out: that won't be good even with his accelerated rate of healing.

"Second team was supposed to retrieve the Soviet Asset. We were supposed to find files on—on Director Carter—"

"Barnes," Steve says, fear coiling in his gut. "Director—"

Peggy doesn't seem to hear him. "The fake file, you mean? The one that was stolen in 1947?"

"It's not fake," the agent rasps.

"Of course it's a falsified file," Peggy snaps, irate, "I wasn't _in bloody France_ —"

"M. Carter," says the agent, voice failing. "Michael."

Peggy drops the pencil and backs away, her breath stuttering, as the man breathes his last, gurgling slightly on the floor and twitching, then going still.

"I called for help," pants Brown, skidding around the corner. "Security is on their way down—"

"Did the second team make it to the infirmary?" Steve demands, raising himself up.

"What? Don't get up, you'll puncture something." Brown glances over at Peggy, who's still staring into the distance, all the color gone from her face. "Director?"

"I—" She pulls herself back to the present, eyes drifting across Steve. "I'm—" She chokes, and gets sick on the floor, her hands shaking as she pulls herself back up. "I’m sorry. Brown—you stay here with Johnson and tell the security team what happened. Tell them to make a full sweep of the building—"

"Barnes is up there," Steve insists, sitting up in spite of Brown's protests. "We don't know the status of the situation—"

"You've been _stabbed_ , you're no good to anyone wounded—"

"I beg to disagree on that one," says Brown, eyebrows raised.

Steve reaches down, steeling himself, and pulls the knife out. The wound gushes blood, and he presses his hand to it. "I'm going upstairs," he insists, trying not to pay attention to the sensation of sticky hot liquid pouring through his fingers.

"Jesus, St—" Peggy catches herself. "Stay here and let the medics handle it, for God's sake."

"I can stay. It's all right. Here." Brown unbuttons Steve's vest and helps him out of it, then wads it up and presses it to his side. "Hold that, Captain America." He sounds as if he's joking. Peggy goes white.

"Thanks," says Steve. "Look, don't—don't, uh—"

"What, tell the SF that I saw Agent Johnson swing a lid like a shield and take out three guys by himself and get stabbed without going down?" Brown snorts. "That's just crazy talk. 'Course I didn't see that."

"Thank you for your _discretion_ ," says Peggy through pale lips as she winds her arm around Steve and helps him up.

* * *

The elevator is far too small. Steve leans on Peggy, focusing on breathing as it takes them upward to the infirmary. "Who's—who's Michael Carter?" he asks, tentative.

She ignores the question. He's not sure she isn't in shock: her lips are as white as paper, her hands are shaking, and she's just staring straight ahead. "We ought to get out one floor early and use the stairs," she says.

Okay. If she doesn't want to talk, he won't make her. "Okay. Sixth floor, then?"

"Yes."

He waits until they're at the floor and presses the emergency stop, shoving the doors open with one hand and stepping out. "Secure," he says, listening. The sixth floor is just offices, and nobody is here. They head to the stairwell, creeping up the two flights, and Steve presses his back to the wall by the door to the seventh floor, listening.

He can't hear much past the concrete, but there's no gunfire or shouting, so that's a good sign. "All right. You're clear."

Peggy pulls her skirt up to her waist, yanks a Walther PPK out of her garter, opens the door, and slips out. Steve follows her, acutely aware of the pain in his side and of the fact that only she is armed. The place seems deserted: the doctors and nurses probably evacuated instantly.

They slip down the corridor with the private rooms, and instantly Peggy stops, pointing. There's blood on the floor, streaking from all directions, as if something has been dragged. Steve's gut wrenches: did they rip his arm off his body and drag him somewhere?

Peggy holds up a hand, signaling with her fingers: _Follow trail._ He keeps behind her. The trail seems to start in multiple spots—Steve visualizes Bucky struggling and being knocked from side to side—but comes together in one long, half-drying path of blood leading down the hall, away from the rooms, and—

They round the corner by the nurses' station and see eight men, very clearly dead, all dressed in black and piled up on each other like so much garbage. Blood seeps out from under the pile of bodies, and Peggy steps back sharply. "Well," she says aloud, "I—"

"Bucky," says Steve quickly, and turns back to the hall, paying no mind to Peggy trailing him. He finds Bucky's room, and sees that the glass in the viewing window has been shattered, broken shards glittering on the floor. The door has been hit with something heavy; it's dented and swinging slightly ajar. "Peggy, watch your step. There's broken glass."

"Good Lord," she says faintly, looking at the ripped blinds. "Is he in there?"

"Bucky?" calls Steve, hand on the door. "It's me and Director Carter. We're coming in."

There's no answer at first, but then there's a very timid, "Agent Johnson?" and Steve recognizes Nurse Bea's voice. He opens the door and reveals a bizarre sight.

The bed has been knocked over. Blood stains the walls, the floor: and in the corner farthest from the door, Bucky Barnes, drenched head to toe in drying blood, is sitting, arms outspread, shielding both Bea and Howard Stark, who are huddled on the ground behind him. His eyes snap up and fix on Steve, and Howard looks up, absolutely shaken.

"He's not letting us leave," he says, staring at Peggy in supplication.

"I told you," says Bea, sounding more annoyed than anything, "he's just following orders not to let us come to any harm."

"The _blood_ —" says Howard, looking as if he's going to be sick.

"Oh, you're a big baby," scoffs Bea. "I see worse than this every day on rotations."

"Orders?" Bucky asks, peering up at Peggy and Steve.

"Crikey," says Peggy faintly, shaken. "Well done, Barnes. Stand on up and let Bea and Howard come out."

He unfolds himself from the corner and stands aside, and both Stark and the nurse edge away. "Can either of you tell us what happened?" asks Steve, standing the toppled chair back up on its feet and guiding Bucky into it.

"Oh," says Bea, smoothing out her blood-stained skirt. "I—well, I was in here already, for my shift with him, and Mr. Stark came in to see if he might let Bucky get a little closer to the arm to see it. He'd just come in when suddenly the door just slammed open, _bam_ , and these goons stormed in—"

" _Goons_ ," says Howard, moustache practically vibrating off his face with anger. "They were some kind of tactical—death squad. Whole bunch in the hall, too. One of them aimed a gun at me and another one threw Bea off the bed. I thought we were going to be shot, but—"

"But Barnes leaped into action," Bea interjects. "I've never seen anything like it. It was like—a switch flipped, and he just—I think he put his metal hand all the way through someone's head." She looks a little green, in spite of her earlier words toward Stark. "Anyway, he—he killed everyone in here and everyone out in the hall. It didn't take very long. Mr. Stark and I just sort of hid in the corner and when he was done we could hear him dragging bodies; then he came back in and checked us for injuries before making us stay put. He wasn't angry about it, just very firm, and of course neither of us were going to try to make a dash for it."

"You've been hurt," says Barnes, eyes glued to Steve's bleeding side.

"It was the CIA," Peggy says, pale. "They stormed the archives, too. They were looking for—" She stops, pressing her lips together. "Bea, if you're not too shaken up, could you have a look at Agent Johnson?"

"Oh, sure," says Bea. "Agent, you want to sit on the—" She looks around, at a loss; every piece of furniture is overturned and ruined. "Here," she says, and drags the mattress off of the wreckage of the bed, laying it out on the floor. "Just sit here, and I'll take a look—Director, your feet are bleeding."

Peggy looks down expressionlessly at the pool of fresh blood she's standing in. "Ah," she says. "It seems so."

"Sit here," says Bucky, struggling out of his seat and pointing. There's a lucidity to his eyes that seems almost wild, bright and slightly off-kilter. "It's—it's okay. I'll get help."

"Let him," says Bea calmly, unbuttoning Steve's shirt. "Mr. Stark, can you go get me one of the green kits at the nurses' station? Oh—what's this?" The file, hidden under Steve's shirt and nearly forgotten, slips out, and lands in his lap. It's blood-stained, but undamaged.

"That's…what the CIA was after," says Steve, setting it to the side.

"Sure," says Howard, and edges out of the room, broken glass crunching under his feet. "Should we, uh, I don't know, call someone?"

"Security's already sweeping the building. Don't bother." Peggy lift one foot over her knee and winces. "Perfectly good pair of stockings. Shame." She rolls them down tenderly and discards them: the feet are stained with blood.

Bucky's rifling through drawers and comes up with disinfectant, a dish, and a pair of forceps. Peggy flinches as he nears her in spite of herself. "Oh, no—"

"It's all right," he says, crouching at her side. "I know what I'm doing."

"I bloody hope so," she mutters, and squeezes her eyes shut, wincing as Barnes douses her foot with the disinfectant.

"All right," says Bea, peeling the sodden vest off Steve's torso. "I'll just—yeah, that's deep. What the heck did you get stabbed with?"

"Big knife," says Steve through his teeth, gripping the edge of the mattress.

"Stitches it is, then," she says.

Howard comes back in. "Got the kit. Here." He hands it to Bea, who opens it and puts on a pair of sterile latex gloves before setting about cleaning out the wound with alcohol. Steve's lips turn white, and Peggy turns her attention back to the man at her feet, delicately pulling shards of glass out of her foot with forceps.

"It's okay," he repeats to himself, furrowing his brow as he pulls the last chunk out of the ball of her foot. "Okay. Other one?"

She lifts her other foot and Barnes sets to work. Howard stands in the middle of the floor, looking queasily from Peggy to Steve to the blood on the walls and floor. "Hey, uh, Peg," he says faintly. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"You wouldn't be the first one to get sick today," says Peggy. "Find a bin. The cleaners will have a bad enough time, what with all the blood."

He staggers out, and Steve looks up, still white and sweating as Bea busily sticks a needle through his broken skin. "Who'd have thought Stark's one weakness was blood?"

"Don't tell the CIA that," she says. "At least we can know for sure he's no Communist, he'd faint at the sight of anything red."

Bea snorts. "All right," she says, plastering a bandage over Steve's side. Half his shirt is still on, and sweat is beading on his chest: Peggy delicately looks the other way. "Keep that on and I'll get your stitches out in about two weeks."

"It'll be sooner than that," says Peggy absently. "He—he's a fast healer."

"Good to know." Bea turns over her shoulder. "How are you getting along, Bucky?"

The last piece of glass clinks into the shallow dish Bucky's dug out of the cupboard. "Done," he says, and sprays Peggy's foot again. "Okay, you need…a bandage." He stands, paces for a moment, then picks up a few sterile pads and surgical tape from Bea's box, plastering them over Peggy's cuts and holding them down with the surgical tape.

"Thank you, Barnes," Peggy tells him, feeling touched.

"Least I could do for Steve's girl," he says, giving her a small smile.

Steve goes rigid, but Bea turns her head and grins. "Oh, he's told me a lot about all your adventures," she informs Peggy. "I really am sorry about Captain Rogers. If it—if it's worth anything."

Peggy swallows. "That's perfectly all right," she says automatically. "Thank you."

"What was he like?" Bea asks, interested. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking—Bucky has a lot of stories about from when they were kids, you know, but the full picture, Captain America—that's got to be something."

"Oh, he was—" Peggy forces herself not to look at Steve, who's got an expression on his face as if someone's just walked over his own grave. "He was a truly—good man. You don't often find those these days."

"You sure don't," says Bea, wiping her hands clean.

"He treated me exactly how he would treat anyone of my rank, and at the time it was—very much appreciated," Peggy goes on. "He never failed to go above and beyond the call of duty, and he always comported himself with conduct befitting an officer. I—I was very lucky to have known him."

"He carried your picture," says Bucky, shooting Steve a sly little look when Bea's not paying attention. "In his compass."

"Yes, I heard," says Peggy, throat thickening. "I—I suppose it's at the bottom of the Atlantic now."

Fortunately they're all saved by the sudden arrival of the security team, who takes photographs of everything and upends the quiet moment for all of them. Bea is whisked off to give a statement and Bucky, Peggy, and Steve all sit, bandaged and bruised, on a bench with blankets over their shoulders while officers mill up and down and start untangling the mass of bodies from the pile Bucky's left them in.

* * *

Phillips arrives thirty minutes later, still in his work clothes and looking as old as Methuselah. "Please do not tell me the CIA made off with our archived files," is the first thing out of his mouth once he sees Bucky is sitting safe and sound in the hall.

"No, sir," says Steve, handing him the bloodstained folder. "Here. I got it." Phillips takes it with shaking hands, opening it and slipping on his reading glasses.

"Let's make sure we didn't almost get killed over nothing. Carter, you feel up to listening to the description of who shot Thompson?"

Peggy blinks. "Yes," she says faintly.

"Good. 'Tall, white man, thin face, thin lips, brown-blond hair. Small scar on the chin. Wore a black hat, black suit.'" Phillips glances up at her.

Peggy takes a small breath. "Does Thompson specify where on the chin the scar was?" she asks.

"No." Phillips flips the paper. "Wait, yes. He marked it on the sheet as…right here." Phillips indicates a short line just below the bottom lip on the right side of his chin.

"Yes," she says, eyes distant. "Yes, I know who took the file and who shot Thompson; and moreover I know who the file's about. It isn't falsified, you see. It's a case of mistaken identity. As if that matters now."

Phillips frowns. "Then who—"

"Michael Carter," she says faintly. "He was a captain in the Royal Army and worked for the Special Operations Executive. He was—he was supposed to have been killed in 1940, although I suppose he isn't dead after all, since he showed up seven years afterward to steal his own file."

"And you know this man?" asks Phillips.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do," she says, looking as if she might be sick again. "He's my brother."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> -OH NO [cue dramatic music]  
> -My husband is my beta reader especially when it comes to war history; thank you DARLING, enjoy your cameo.


	15. September 1, 1950

Bucky stands naked in the private bathroom attached to his room, pressed into the back corner of the wall and eyeing up Nurse Bea with a suspicious glare.

He's been working on listing down Things He Likes and Things He Doesn’t Like: he wasn't allowed to have preferences in Russia (which is how he thinks of the past five years, regardless of the actual location, it's all just In Russia) and it's easier every day to remember.

Things he likes: Nurse Bea, tapioca pudding, Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes with butter, Agent Johnson (who's actually Steve, and that's another thing he likes, being trusted with secrets), Director Carter, warm blankets, going on walks with Nurse Bea around the halls, cherry Jell-O, singing, checkers.

Things he doesn't like: Being cold, being left alone, glasses, Howard Stark (that's on the _maybe_ list, he wouldn't mind the man so much if he didn't stare at his arm all the time), having his arm messed with, taking medicine, spinach, having his hair messed with, and showers.

Currently he has a Like and a Do Not Like warring with each other: Nurse Bea, who he Likes, is trying to get him to Shower, which he Does Not Like. He knows showers are cold, and he hates being cold and wet, and no matter how much she says that she promises the water will be hot, he can't bring himself to trust her.

"Come on, Bucky," she pleads. "You're leaving today. You're going to the safe apartment with Agent Johnson, remember? We can't let you step out of here all covered in old dried blood."

"Sponge bath," he insists, wedging himself further into the corner. She couldn't pry him out if she tried, not even with a crowbar. "Please." His voice cracks, and he hates it: he doesn't want to cry in front of Nurse Bea.

"I promise you the water's hot," she coaxes. "Look, I've brought all these towels so you won't get cold. Can I turn on the water and just let it run a little bit? The steam will feel nice—even though it'll ruin my hair—" and for emphasis, she plucks at a curl on her forehead. Her hair is clipped short in the back, and all her front hair is curled as usual: she must be telling the truth if she's willing to ruin her hair, because she's told him before how hard it is to get it to behave, and humidity makes it worse.

Bucky considers. "Okay," he says. "Turn it on."

Bea reaches inside the cubicle and switches the water on, the jets spurting to life and hissing, pattering water on the floor. "If you watch," she says conversationally, "you'll see the steam curling off the top."

He doesn't move, but he watches, and sure enough he can see steam moving like fog above the shower. "Huh," he says.

There's a knock at the door, and Bea sighs. "I'll be back in a moment," she says, and crosses to the door, poking her head around it. "What is it?"

Bucky can hear the other person, an orderly he knows and who's about to be officially added to the Do Not Like list: "How long does it take you to wrestle a man into a shower? Johnson and Carter are waiting."

"They can wait a little longer," she says. "He's hydrophobic and if I force him to get into the shower you _won't_ like the results, Baker. It's an important last step and a really big one."

Bucky works himself out of the corner for a moment and pauses, trying to calm down. _It's okay_ , he says to himself, pretending as he so often does that his inner voice is Steve. It's easier to pretend Steve is saying things that go against his training, instead of the thoughts coming from himself: Bea says it's all right that he thinks like for now that if it makes it easier. _It's okay. It's hot water. You can see the steam._ He takes a few steps, ignoring Bea arguing through the door with the orderly. _You can do it._ He wonders if he could put a hand into the water. That wouldn't be bad: he could test it. _Just put your hand in._

The metal one can't feel temperature, just pressure, so he stretches out his flesh hand, steels himself, and sticks it under the flow of water. Heat drips across his palm and finger, all the way up to his wrist, and his fingers start shaking: it's _not cold_ , he did it.

"Well done!" says Nurse Bea from behind him, and he turns to see her grinning in delight. It makes him feel nice and fluttery on the inside when someone says he's done a good job, and he offers her a smile back.

"I'll…I'll get in all the way," he says, hands still trembling. It's one of the hardest things he's ever had to do, but he steps over the tile lip and shoves himself into the stream of water, gasping in mixed shock and relief as hot water courses down his body, softening dried blood and sloughing grime off his skin.

Bea takes out a washcloth and soap. "Get this wet and clean yourself up," she tells him brightly, handing both to him. "Good job. I'm real proud of you."

Bucky takes it, soaping it up and scrubbing himself from head to toe until his skin prickles and the water running down him is clean. _Okay,_ says the voice in his head that's Steve's for now, _think about good ways you remember water._ He remembers showers, baths in a tin tub: remembers the first time he saw a drinking fountain. He remembers salt water swirling around his feet on a beach on a sticky summer day, and takes a deep breath before squeezing the washcloth clean and handing it back to Bea. "I think I'm done," he says.

Her hair is definitely ruined, the curls gone every which way: flat and lanky and loopy and stuck to her forehead, but she doesn't seem to mind. "Good," she says, and hands him a towel as he switches the water off and steps out. "Dry off and we'll get you dressed and ready to go."

He dries off and tucks the towel around his waist, then takes a quick look at his reflection in the mirror. Bucky hasn't been keen on mirrors, the reflection of his face: but he looks different enough from his old reflection that he can stand it for a moment, just to see.

Same face, more beard. Circles under his eyes, probably because he's been so nervous about being moved that he hasn't slept too much—not that he doesn't have problems sleeping anyway. His hair has grown out, shaggy enough to brush his ears and cover his forehead. Vaguely, he remembers that he used to care a lot about how he looked. Somehow it doesn't seem as important now, but that's all right.

"Stark's going to be upset they're moving me," he says to Bea as he dresses himself. The clothes are nondescript: underwear, a shirt, shoes, socks, trousers, belt, jacket. "He never got to check out my arm."

"Stark can shove it," says Bea, opening the door once he's decent. "Your arm's yours. Nobody needs to touch it if you don't want them to."

He muses on that, and realizes Bea's never actually touched his arm at all: the only times she's ever touched it is when she was teaching him Miss Mary Mack or by pure accident. Bucky thinks for a moment as she fusses with the bed and strips the linens. "You could touch it if you like."

She turns around and gives him a surprised look. "Oh? Me?"

"Sure. I—I wouldn't mind, I mean. I don't think I would."

"I'm all right," she says, smiling. "All those lines and plates. I'd shred my fingers or something, knowing my luck. But thanks."

He buttons up his shirt and slips on the jacket. There's a pair of gloves, to hide the metal hand, and he slips them on. "I'm going to look weird," he says, risking another glance in the mirror. "Who has a metal arm?" He runs a hand through his hair, trying to make it look neat, like Steve's.

"Just tell people it's an expensive Stark Industries prototype," says Bea. "Okay, last check. What's your name?"

"James Buchanan Barnes," he says confidently, coming out of the bathroom. "I'm thirty-three, my birthday is March 10th, and I was a POW for over five years. I—" He has to fight down the old fear for a moment, but he makes it work. "I was best friends with Captain America and I fought with the Howling Commandos."

"Wonderful. You look good." She smiles. "I'll let Johnson figure out how to get you a shave. All right. Ready to go?"

Bucky takes a look around the room. "Ready," he says, and follows Nurse Bea out into the hall.

* * *

Steve is waiting for him with a car when he emerges into the bright morning sunshine, smiling. "Hey, pal," he says easily, and Bucky returns the smile.

"Hey, Johnson," he says, and slides into the backseat of the car, shutting the door behind him while Bea hands over his chart and exchanges a few more words with Steve. He likes the car: it's long and wide and the seats are bouncy.

Bucky reflects on the past few weeks. He'd had a few sessions with a shrink Bea had found for him, who had explained the difference between parroting whatever he was told to do and say so people would leave him alone and actually breaking conditioned behavior, and even though he'd hated it at first and it had been a little rocky, he has to admit that working past that wall has been exhilarating. And terrifying, of course, but he feels free again: it's like the world has opened up to a new scene of endless possibilities.

Bea leans down to the window as Steve climbs into the driver's seat. "I’ll see you twice a month for progress reports," she says. "Remember, your job now is to keep up the good work and don't regress. You'll have to put some elbow grease into it. Okay?"

He gives her a smile through the window. "Okay. See you later, Bea."

"See you, Bucky," she calls, and waves as Steve pulls away from the curb and gets on the highway, driving towards DC. Bucky twists around until she's a speck in the distance, and then turns to face the windshield.

"All right," says Steve. "I'll take you to the apartment, get you settled in."

"How's Peggy?" Bucky asks.

Steve looks tense, even from behind. "She's, uh. She's taking some time for herself."

"They ever figure out where that file ended up?" Bucky's interested in spite of himself: having something to think about and focus on that isn't his own washing machine of a brain has been fun.

Blue eyes meet his in the rear view mirror. "Hey. You're not supposed to be worrying about SHIELD stuff. You're supposed to be focusing on getting better."

"I am," he insists. "I just like thinking about stuff, that's all."

Steve sighs. "They think Michael Carter might have been taken prisoner in occupied France and been marked as MIA, not KIA," he explains. "Since the nature of his work was…real sensitive, his family was told he was killed, or maybe it was just assumed. We're not sure. Nobody knew what he did for the SOE. Phillips thinks he might have been taken to Germany as the Allied liberated France, but there's no trail of him past 1940."

"Except when he showed up in L.A. in '47 and shot an agent to steal his own file," says Bucky.

"Right."

"Seven years is enough time to…make someone think they're someone else," says Bucky carefully.

"What d'you mean?"

Bucky snorts. "I mean—look at _me_. Five years and my head's all gone to shit. If Hydra got their hands on Carter, they could do the same thing. Maybe minus the metal arm, but, you know. Why else would he be shooting American agents for files?"

"Maybe the Soviets wanted the file in '47 so they could frame Peggy, you mean?" Steve frowns. 

Bucky nods. "Or Hydra. Either way, not good."

"But if they've had it since then, why would the CIA want it now?"

"Maybe someone at the CIA is in touch with the MGB," says Bucky.

"Or Hydra," says Steve, eyes glued to the road as they merge onto a smaller road, driving through a neighborhood. "I'll speak to her when I get the chance."

They pull into a side street and Steve parks. Bucky's out of the car before he can move, staring up at the brick building next to them. "Good apartment," he says automatically, looking for exits. Fire exits, good: side entrance, better.

"C'mon," says Steve, pulling out his key. "Just like old times, huh?"

* * *

Steve lets Bucky go inside first and shuts the door behind them. He'd kept the place clean and tidy (especially because in the wake of Peggy's emotional shock over her brother being alive, there was no way he was going over to her place anytime soon) and set up the other bedroom for Bucky.

He'd been excited at the prospect. Initially he'd allowed himself to pretend that it would be just like when he'd moved in with Bucky after his mother had died. Then he'd gotten the massive chart from Nurse Anderson, which had put a damper on his happy thoughts, but he'd resolved to follow her instructions anyway.

Bucky goes over the room automatically, glancing at Steve as if he knows he shouldn't be, but Steve just nods. "Take your time," he says, and goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Bucky checks the windows in the living area, moves to the bedroom, comes out, goes into the other bedroom, and comes back out.

"Location secure," he says, as if he doesn't want to say it. "Sorry," he adds sheepishly.

"Don't worry about it. Water?"

"Sure." Bucky leans against the counter (his back to the wall and facing the exits, Steve notices) and gulps at the water. "Nice. Bachelor pad, huh?"

Steve snorts. "It's your bachelor pad, too, jerk."

"Wait, I forgot. I had one more question." Bucky sets the water glass down. "Remember a couple months back you said something about me being like this after sixty years and that I had to do it again?"

"Uh. Yeah," says Steve, inwardly cringing.

"What the hell did you mean?"

"It's…complicated," Steve mutters. "So, uh. Okay." He blows air out. "We oughta go sit on the sofa for this one."

"Okay," says Bucky, eyes narrowed, and they head into the living room, Bucky on the couch and Steve pacing. "You're not gonna sit?"

"Not right now," says Steve. "Okay. You gotta promise you won't ask a million questions till I'm done."

Bucky grins. "Now you're getting me interested. C'mon. Spit it out."

So Steve does.

* * *

It's mid-afternoon by the time Steve's done talking, and when he finishes, Bucky just sits there in shock, mouth slightly open.

"So you're saying—you're saying that you deleted, or erased, or whatever—the timeline that _should_ have had me being stuck with Hydra for sixty years?"

"No, I didn't delete it," says Steve, sitting down on the sofa next to him. "You can't do that. I made a new timeline. I don't know how much is going to be, you know, different in this one—hell, I think you're supposed to shoot a US President in the next ten years—but I didn't think about that. I just—I just wanted you to have a life."

"You never think about a goddamn thing," says Bucky with unexpected passion, and he turns and wraps his arms around Steve's shoulders, squeezing him tight. "Jesus," he says, hoarse.

"You're not mad?" Steve asks, automatically hugging him back. "I can't help but feel like I took your whole damn life you had—your friends—"

"You didn't take my life, you gave me a new one," Bucky says. "I don't know those people you were talking about. Maybe the other me liked them, but I don't know 'em, so I'm not mad."

Steve's stomach growls, and he releases Bucky with a grin. "You want pancakes? I can mix some up real quick; tide us over till dinner."

"Oh, God, yes," says Bucky, lurching off the sofa.

* * *

Peggy Carter sits alone in her living room, holding a cold cup of tea and staring at the wall.

Really, it's not like her to wallow like this. A small voice in the back of her head keep insisting she get up, do something, at least put her hair in curlers; her body refuses to move, planted like a rock.

_Michael is alive._

She can't help but feel distantly horrified, as if her brother had been buried alive by mistake, as if he had clawed his way out of the grave reeking of rot and worms: she knows it's fanciful but she can't shake the chill up her back. A ghost, come back from death to haunt her. She hasn't been able to shake the shock of it for a month; she doesn't even care that Phillips sent her home to recover and that she hasn't bothered insisting she can return to work. She knows she can't.

"I'm no use at all," she says aloud.

She ought to call Steve. Peggy knows that in the back of her mind, but she can't make herself get up and go to the telephone. It's past three. He's been home with Bucky for hours. She should call.

_Michael is alive._

The phone rings, startling her out of her reverie, and she forces herself to stand, slogging over as if she's knee-deep in wet cement. She picks up. "Yes," she says flatly.

" _Hey, Peggy,_ " says Steve on the other end. " _Just, uh, calling to check on you. I know it's been a while, and you asked for space, but—"_

Tears gather in her eyes in spite of everything. A lump swells in her throat. "Steve," she says, voice shaking. "I'm so sorry."

" _What? No, you don't have to be sorry. Listen—oh, I've got Bucky here. He wants to talk to you."_

She swallows as there's a burst of static, then Bucky's voice. " _Hey, Carter,"_ he says. " _You doing okay?"_

"Not really," she says, trying not to burst into tears over the phone. "I can't stop thinking about my brother—where he is, what he's doing—"

" _Steve and I were talking about that, and I think—"_

There's a scuffle, and she can hear Steve saying  " _not a good time, don't upset her anymore"_ somewhere in the distance.

"Barnes? It's all right—" Peggy wipes her eyes. "If you've got anything at all to say, please do say it, and tell Rogers he can wait his turn."

Bucky sounds hesitant anyway. " _It's just that, uh, I was thinking. If your brother shot an American to get his own file, he probably wasn't doing it under his own free will."_

"No," says Peggy, clinging to the phone. "No, Michael wasn't that sort of man at all."

_"Right. So… what if he was moved out of France to Germany or somewhere and fell in with Hydra? He would have had longer to, uh, get his mind all rewired. Like me."_

Peggy forces herself to think. "That would mean…he was sent on a mission to retrieve his own file."

" _Or he did it himself."_

"He could be a Soviet agent," she says, desperately trying to hold it together. "I'll—I'll see if we can dig out any intelligence. Surveillance photographs, maybe: we had some people in Moscow keeping tabs on the MGB offices. I'll look into it."

The phone crackles again and Steve comes back on. " _You okay?"_

"I'm—I think I will be." She sniffs. "I just want something to _do_ , you know. I feel so bloody useless."

" _If you want to swing by for dinner, we're making spaghetti."_ She smiles for the first time in weeks: he sounds as if he's afraid to ask her, like he thinks she might break if she tries to move. " _Or, you know, if you don't like spaghetti, I'll make you something else."_

"Spaghetti is fine," she says, clearing her throat. "I'll—I'll have to get my hair knocked into shape."

He chuckles on the other end. _"Don't worry about that. Just show up in whatever's easiest. See you at…five-thirty sound okay?"_

Peggy looks at the clock. It's five on the dot. "That's perfect. I'll see you soon."

* * *

She shows up at Steve's flat, freshly showered and wearing trainers, a pair of old slacks, a blouse, and with her uncurled hair covered in a scarf. Neither man seems to care, and she's ushered in immediately and given a lesson in cooking pasta by Barnes, who's wearing a striped apron, his metal hand delicately curled around a wooden spoon, as Steve sets the kitchen table for three.

"So, the way you cook the _perfect_ spaghetti," Barnes lectures, stirring the pot of boiling water, "is you add a little olive oil and salt to the water beforehand so the noodles don't stick to each other. Not too much, or they won't stick to the wall."

"Who on earth taught you how to cook spaghetti?" Peggy crosses her ankles, smiling as Barnes balances a bottle of wine in his other hand, pouring it into the sauce in the pot on the other burner with ease.

"Old Mrs. Esposito," says Steve, filling in when Bucky looks blank for a moment. "She wanted Bucky to marry her youngest daughter."

Bucky's eyes light up. "Right! Margarita. Everyone called her Rita, like Rita Hayworth."

"Did you like her?" teases Peggy.

He scoffs. "I'd have had to convert to bein' a Catholic if I was gonna marry her, and that was too much trouble for me. Good food, though."

Steve laughs. "You always got real pious every time Mama Esposito brought out the lasagna after Mass, though."

Bucky aims the spoon at Steve. "It was _good_ ," he says defensively, and goes back to the sauce.

"So," says Peggy, her mouth practically watering from the smells of tomatoes and wine and meat, "no Mass for you, either?" She likes how both men have slipped into a New York accent, slightly nasal, leaving off the ends of words—it's like a second language that they only use around each other.

Steve shakes his head. "Nah. Everyone thinks everyone who's got any Irish blood at all must be some kinda devout Catholic, but, uh—my family came from Northern Ireland. Plenty more Protestants there than you might think."

"Not particularly devout, then?" she asks. He blushes, his cheeks turning bright pink, and Peggy bites her lip. "I'm so sorry—what on earth is the matter with me? Here I am asking personal questions—"

"No, no," he says, waving her off. "I was a lot more devout before Ma died. And after—well, you know. After seeing what I've seen…" He trails, off frowning slightly. "I don't know. I guess there could be a God, but I'm no expert, and neither is anybody else in the universe, no matter what they say."

"Hear, hear," says Peggy, in spite of her solid Church of England sensibilities. "Although I do like the routine, you know. Christenings and weddings and funerals and such."

"Protestants don't have christenings," says Bucky from the kitchen.

"Sure they do," says Steve, setting down the last glass. "They have baptism, and that's almost the same thing, except they do it on grown folks and not babies. That pasta ready yet?"

Bucky draws a strand of noodle out of the pot and flings it against the backsplash in the kitchen. "It sticks!" he proclaims, and carries the pot to the sink, straining the water out in a colander as steam rises in clouds above the sink. "Sauce is simmering. We're a go."

"Great." Steve pours Peggy a glass of wine, and another for himself and for Bucky. "All right, get in here with our food—wait, shoot—the bread!" He darts into the kitchen, opening the oven, and pulls out a loaf of garlic bread. "Okay, it's slightly burned. That's fine."

Peggy laughs as Bucky shakes his head at her and sets the pots on the potholders on the table. "Hopeless," he says.

She thinks how nice it is to be around people again, to have something to do on Monday: everything else can take a back burner for now. Compartmentalize; put away all her grief and fear over Michael. This is better. This is all right.

* * *

By seven-thirty, Peggy is…very tipsy. She'd forgotten that she was in the company of a pair of super-soldiers who can't get intoxicated like she can, and despite the garlic bread soaking up the wine in her stomach, she's in no condition to drive home, and she knows it.

"Easy," says Steve's deep voice, and he lifts her up, one thick arm under hers, behind her back. "It's a Friday night, anyway. Good thing she doesn't have work in the morning."

Peggy tries to make her feet work. "Be hungover in the morning," she manages.

"Probably," says Bucky. "We can put her in my room. I can sleep on the floor—"

"No, I'm not taking your room," Peggy protests, jerking her head up. "I'll…sofa."

"You're not sleeping on the sofa," Steve tells her patiently. "You can sleep in my bed, and I'll take the floor. Come on."

She lets him take her to his room, and he sets her down on the bed, gently tugging at the scarf around her hair. "Scandalizing," she mutters, weaving back and forth a little. "Me, at the home of a pair of confirmed bash—bachelors." A hiccup makes its way out of her throat.

"You let me worry about that," he says, and kneels down to unlace her trainers, pulling them off.

All she can see is his massive back, hunched over and straining at the shirt he's got on. "You're big," she says.

He chuckles. "Sure am. You mind sleeping in your clothes?"

"I hate it," Peggy tells him, trying to steady herself on the edge of the bed. "Is the door closed?"

"It is now," says Bucky, poking his head around the half-open door. "Have a nice evening, Director." He grins.

"Oh, bugger off," she says, sticking her tongue out at him. He seems ridiculously tickled about that, and shuts the door behind him.

"Wish he hadn't done that," says Steve, tugging at the hem of her shirt. "All right. Arms up for me."

She obeys. "Shut th' door? Why?" Her blouse slithers off upward, and she brings her arms back down.

"Don't worry about it," he says, pink in the nose. "Um. Bra, too?"

"Steve Rogers," Peggy says with as much dignity as she can muster, "I do hope you're not implying that I'd like to sleep in my brassiere, because I would _not_."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and carefully unhooks it, slipping the straps off over her shoulders and pulling it off her. "I'll find you a shirt to sleep in."

Peggy leans back on her elbows and kicks her feet. "Trousers, please," she says, feeling as daring as one can feel after having drunk four and a half glasses of wine.

Steve turns bright red, and fumbles with the buttons on her pants, managing to get them off in one piece and setting them aside with the rest of her clothes. "I'm not taking off your briefs," he tells her, kneeling on the floor, eyes avoiding her chest at all costs.

"What if I ask very nicely?" she shoots back, blinking through her hair.

"Jesus, Peggy," he says—but he sounds helpless, not angry. "You're drunk—I mean, not in your right mind."

"I suppose I'm not," she says, leaning slightly sideways. "Why won't you look at me?"

"I am looking at you," Steve insists, eyes focused on her forehead.

She huffs. "At _me_ , Steve. I do have a body, you know. I don't mind if you look at it."

"See, you say that now, but if you were sober—"

"Oh, bloody _hell_." Peggy reaches for his hand and drags it to her chest, planting his palm firmly on her right breast. "If I was sober I wouldn't be brave enough to ask you to _do it_ , Rogers." He chokes slightly, his fingers contracting on instinct, and shoots her a betrayed look.

"That's—that's not fair—"

She's too busy reveling in the strange new sensation of a man's bare hand on her body, _Steve's_ hand nonetheless, large and strong and calloused. "You," she says, taking care to speak clearly, "are not allowed to withdraw your hand until you've given—given what you're holding onto some attention."

His eyes narrow, and she thinks for a moment perhaps she's making a mistake until Steve brushes her nipple with the pad of his thumb, and _oh_ , that. That's. That's something. She squeezes her thighs together, eyes half-shut. "Like that?" he asks softly, and she nods, not trusting herself to speak as his fingers splay out, squeeze, brush, lift and knead. It sends the oddest sensation of dull tingling down her belly and between her legs, and Peggy inhales slightly, head spinning—from the touching or the wine, she doesn't know.

She had never considered _enjoying_ a man touching her. Of course, there'd been a nebulous Future Husband, vague and incorporeal, that had seemed to haunt her at times when she thought about the possibilities of marriage, and she had taken for granted that her Future Husband would paw at her and do whatever inconvenient and undignified things came with a marriage bed, and she would go about taking care of her own needs by herself as she had always done. This... this is something wholly foreign. Steve's fingers slip down under her breast, brushing the swell near her ribs, and she squeaks at the unexpected sensitivity there. "That—that—"

"Is that enough _attention_ for you, ma'am?" he asks, his voice gone low and a little rough.

Peggy's playing with fire. She knows it, and she doesn't care: she missed Steve so much and anything will be better than being left alone. "Other one," she demands, tilting her head down to indicate.

He obeys immediately, his other hand reaching up to cup and lift and press, and she squeezes both her thighs and her eyes shut tight, desperately fighting the heat pooling in her briefs. It's about as effective as putting a piece of paper over a fire hydrant, and her eyes pop open when Steve leans in, still on his knees, and lays an experimental kiss on the underside of her right breast before slipping up slowly to her nipple, curling his tongue around it, pressing it flat.

A mouth. A _mouth_ on her breast: Peggy's head churns with trying to make sense of it. Mouths on breasts…those are for babies, aren't they? She's never heard of men doing that to women—but Steve's doing it again, his lips parted this time, and he's nuzzling at her, _sucking_ at her skin. Then he does it to her other breast, and Peggy's cheeks are on fire from the wine and from what he's doing. He pushes his face between them, cheeks rasping on her delicate skin, and his mouth and his hands are moving, slow and gentle.

It feels like an eternity until her breasts are reddened and wet, her nipples hard and tingling in the air of the bedroom, his eyes half-shut in bliss. Somehow her hand has made it into his hair, clinging to it; her fingers are white against the light brown and sun-lightened strands. "Steve," she gasps, sounding much less in control of herself than she intended to.

He releases her nipple with a soft _pop_ and looks up, his mouth swollen and red. "Yeah, Peggy?" he asks, voice gone dusky.

No, this is _not_ her Steve. It's someone better, and she didn't think that was possible—then again, she's drunk. For the life of her, she doesn't know what to say. He looks beautiful like this, kneeling between her thighs, shoulders taking up her lap. "You—you like them?" she asks, feeling dizzy.

"Very much," he confirms, pressing a kiss to her collarbone. "You're a little pink. You feeling okay?"

"Want to…lie down," she manages, and he helps her, guiding her down to the bed until she's splayed out wearing nothing but her briefs, her breasts still tingling and everything between her thighs aching. Steve sits at her waist, gently stroking her hair out of her face. "Come here," she says, reaching out a hand to him."

"I am here," he says.

"I want you to lie down with me," she insists. "In the bed."

"I don't think that's—"

"Please, Steve," she begs, pulling at his arm. She knows full well she can't move him if he doesn't want to move, so she takes it as a victory when he lets her manhandle him down. He climbs over her, lies down at her back, and pulls her close, very carefully. His chest is huge and warm at her bare back, and his arm is curled around her waist: something is jabbing uncomfortably at her lower back, but she doesn't mind it.

"This okay?" he asks softly, mouth near her ear.

"Perfectly," Peggy says, shutting her eyes against the spinning room. "Just don't go. I don't…I don't want to be alone."

"Then you won't be," he says softly, and she lets herself drift off.

* * *

Peggy wakes up and squints at the light coming in through the windows: she's on her back, something hot and heavy is draped over her stomach, and she feels like her head's being squeezed in a vise. Peggy peers down at the thing on her waist, and sees an arm: slightly sun-tanned, dusted with blond hair, enormous and draped firmly over her body. She follows the arm to the shoulder, and realizes with some detached shock that she's in bed with Steve Rogers.

He's curled up on his side, head pressed against her armpit: her right arm is flung up over her head and his left one is under her neck, somewhere behind the pillow. Thank heavens: he's got on an undershirt and a pair of pajama pants, which is more than she can say for herself: she's wearing a large T-shirt, but there's nothing below her waist except her underwear. "Steve," she whispers, voice croaking. Why on earth is the sun so _bright_? "Steve?"

He mutters indistinctly and pulls her close, and she bites her lip when she feels something rather large and thick pressing against her hip. _Oh, God,_ she thinks, staring at the ceiling. Perfectly natural, of course. Normal. Men's bodies sometimes just _did_ that—it's a good healthy—

Steve presses up on her again, the movement unmistakable, and Peggy's face heats to near-nuclear temperatures. "Steve," she chokes, shaking him, and he sits up instantly, half-awake, blinking at her through a mess of tangled wheat-colored hair.

"Mission alert?" he asks.

"What?" Peggy half sits up, his hand still pinning down the sheet on her left.

"Peggy," he says, eyes clearing. "I thought..." A shadow of something crosses his eyes, but he moves his hand, scrubbing at his face. "Sorry."

"I don't suppose you have aspirin in the cabinet," she says, not wanting to press him.

"There should be some," he tells her, still looking disoriented. "I, ah." Steve glances down at his pajama pants and hastily puts a hand over his groin. "Sorry."

"Yes," she says dryly, averting her eyes as she slides out of bed, "I believe I've become acquainted with it. Did you put a shirt on me?"

"Yes," he says, still awkwardly holding both hands in front of his crotch. "You, uh, you looked cold."

"Oh, did I," she says, narrowing her eyes.

His blue eyes flash up, snapping with sudden mischief. "If you're not anymore, you could always take it off."

"You—oh!" she splutters, flushing to her hairline. "I'm going to get _aspirin_ while you handle _that_." Memories are slowly coming back—had she _really_ asked him to touch her breasts? "And I'm never drinking again. Ever."

"You're welcome to come back over anytime," he teases, and she fights a smile in spite of herself before slipping out of the door, making her way into the kitchen.

Barnes is in the living room, sitting on the floor and watching cartoons on the black-and-white television that Steve's pulled in from Lord knows where. "Morning, Carter," he says without looking at her.

"Good morning, Barnes," she says as politely as she can, and hides her naked lower half behind the counter in the kitchen as she fumbles for the aspirin, gulping down two tablets with water from the tap. Should she go back into Steve's room for her clothes? What if he's still in there? What if he's—she can't let herself even think the word, although she's heard him in the act over the telephone (and, all right, _that_ conversation is saved in great detail to her memory for extremely good and perfectly logical reasons)—and that thought freezes her feet to the floor. Steve Rogers, _wanking_. It feels almost sacrilegious to think about, even though she knows perfectly well he—

Steve walks through the door, looking chipper as ever, and Peggy almost chokes, looking at the floor. "Hey, Buck," he says casually, edging past Peggy to get to the refrigerator. "Eggs and bacon?"

"Pancakes," says Bucky, eyes still glued to the TV as Crusader Rabbit attempts to stop a racing locomotive and is immediately steamrolled.

"Peggy?"

She blinks. "Oh—nothing for me yet. Coffee, perhaps. I'll let my stomach settle."

"Bathroom's down the hall, if you—"

"Yes," she says quickly, "I think I will."

She misses Bucky's eyes flickering over from the screen and rising to his hairline when he catches sight of her bare legs, and she also misses the look he gives Steve, and Steve's resulting brilliant flush from his neck to his ears.

Just as well, after all: some things she doesn't need to see.

* * *

Steve flips the last pancake onto a plate and checks to see that the coffeepot is full, then turns around as the bathroom door opens and Peggy steps out, face and hairline damp. "All right, kids," he announces. "Breakfast. Come eat."

Bucky slings a leg over the kitchen chair and slides down a little, applying liberal amounts of butter and syrup to his pancakes. Peggy pours herself a cup of coffee and sits primly, thighs together as she sips at the cup.

"You feeling a little better?" Steve asks her, piling his own plate full of bacon and eggs.

"Slightly, thank you," she says, not making eye contact. He can't quite blame her for that: Bucky keeps giving him That Look, the look Steve remembers from 1940 and the time they'd thought that Betty from down the street was finally going to give Steve a shot. He can just make out the shape of her nipples through his T-shirt, and he knows immediately that he's never going to be able to wear that shirt again without thinking about her breasts inside them.

 _What was I thinking last night?_ He gulps down orange juice. Sure, she'd asked him to: but she'd been tipsy. Wasn't it his responsibility to say no? _If I was sober I wouldn't be brave enough to ask you to do it_ , says her voice in his memory. Maybe not, then. Maybe she felt like she had to _be_ drunk to let herself _let_ him touch her.

"You're a million miles away, Stevie," says Bucky, and he snaps back to the present, embarrassed. "I said it's a Saturday, do you want to do anything fun?"

"I think the cinemas downtown are still playing _Cinderella_ ," says Peggy, peering at a newspaper. "It's only about eight-thirty now. Matinee showing?" She glances up at Steve.

"Sounds good to me," says Steve, perking up. "I haven't seen it yet." By which, of course, he means he hasn't seen it in a real theater: he had digital copies of every single hand-drawn Walt Disney film on a thumb drive that Tony had given him for Christmas several years back. A thumb drive, he reminds himself, that doesn't exist yet—a gift from a man who hasn't been born.

"Excellent." Peggy shuts the paper. "Then it's settled. Hand me that pancake, Barnes. I've got my appetite back."

* * *

They pile into the car, Peggy in her clothes from the night before and not caring a single bit that she looks as if she's just been gardening: Steve and Bucky in short-sleeved button-downs. It's a blisteringly warm day, and they escape into the Uptown Theater's cool air conditioning with relief.

They sit with Steve in the middle, Bucky on his left and Peggy on his right, and snack on popcorn as the film plays out: Peggy's entertained by the antics of the mice and Steve can't stop whispering about the use of blue on the cels. When the Fairy Godmother transforms Cinderella's rags into the glittering silver gown for the ball, Steve's mouth falls open in delight, and Peggy grins across his gaping expression at Bucky, who shakes his head in mock exasperation.

The film goes on: the ball, the dance, Cinderella's escape before midnight. Peggy's just getting comfortably settled into the third act as the wicked Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella in her room, trapping her, and Bucky makes a noise.

Steve turns, and Peggy's just able to hear low voices before Steve gets up abruptly, eliciting a hiss of _hey, sit down_ from somewhere behind them: the theater's not very well filled and Peggy turns in indignation. "What—"

"Be back soon," says Steve quietly, low and tense, and Peggy looks over as he guides Bucky out, two shapes in the dim light.

Peggy forces herself to sit alone, her hands curled on the popcorn bag. On the screen, Cinderella struggles to escape, but the film becomes line and color, all shapes that make no sense. Is Barnes all right? Should she join the two men? Something must have set him off, but whatever could it be?

She sits until the end of the film, trying to focus. Cinderella escapes, the slipper fits, and she marries the prince: a great big THE END splashes across the screen and the lights come back up. She's on her feet immediately, hurrying out the doors. There's no sign of either man, not in the halls, not in the lobby.

Panic grips her throat. _I've gone mad,_ she thinks irrationally, leaning against the wall for support. _I've dreamed this whole time that Steve was back, that we rescued Barnes: I've lost my mind, they're not real, Steve's dead, Banes is still a prisoner, Steve is gone—_

"Peggy," says a voice, and she whirls on her heels, tears gathered in her eyes, to see Steve with his arm around a pale Bucky's shoulders.

"Oh, thank God," she says feebly, shutting her eyes. "Where _were_ you?"

"Men's room," says Barnes, as if from a great distance. "Sorry."

"C'mon, let's go back to the apartment. How'd it end?" asks Steve, trying to be casual about the whole thing.

Peggy collects herself and slips to Barnes' other side. "She escaped and married the prince and lived happily ever after," she tells Steve, taking Bucky by the arm gently.

"Good for her," says Bucky, still sounding strained as they emerge into the sunshine together. "At least someone around here did."

* * *

"He got sick," Steve says quietly to Peggy later that afternoon, once Barnes has gone to his room and half-shut the door to be alone. "I think it was the scenes of being locked in and trapped that did it."

"I'm so sorry," says Peggy, feeling miserable. "I suggested it, too."

"It wasn't your fault," says Steve, glancing over. "He's probably more embarrassed than anything."

"I ought to—I ought to go back to the office," Peggy tells him, standing quickly. "There's work to do, you know—I can start going over the surveillance photographs from the MGB and see if I spot anything."

"You don't have to go," he murmurs, low and pleading.

"Yes, I think I really do," she says quickly, turning and grabbing up her handbag so he can't see the tears gathering in her eyes. "I'll see you Monday. Please—do tell Barnes I'm sorry."

Steve doesn't say anything at all, just watches her leave with distress written all over his face, and somehow that's the worst part of it all.


	16. September 5, 1950

Chester Phillips is in the middle of his morning crossword puzzle when the door to his office bursts open and he half-jumps out of his seat, looking up in surprise to see Carter wielding a sheaf of photographs like Athena and her spear before she slaps them down into his desk.

"What in the name of—"

"I found him," she announces, her eyes bright and her cheeks red. "I _found_ him. He was in Leningrad this past spring, and not only that, he was with that woman that was handling Barnes for the Soviets."

He gives her a long, hard look. Carter isn't the kind of woman who dissolves into useless tears over a shock, but he'd almost prefer that to this wild-eyed, feverish focus. "You're absolutely sure," he prods.

"I know my own brother's face, thank you," she snaps, spreading out the photographs. There's an official picture of Michael Carter in the mess, and she pulls it out and slaps it down alongside a black and white photograph of a wintry Russian street. "There." One finger points at a man in the crowd wearing a hat, his face slightly turned to the left as he looks at a woman, a head shorter than him whose body is blocked by the blurry shoulder of a man in the foreground, but who is wearing what must be a Soviet military uniform, because she's wearing an ushanka with the crest of the USSR on it and her fur collar is just visible below her chin. "That's him."

Phillips slips on his reading glasses and peers down. The resemblance is uncanny, he has to admit. "How long did it take you to find this?"

"I stayed here all weekend," she says, and he's sure she's telling the truth: Carter looks like she's slept on her couch a few times and he's never seen her look more disheveled. "If he's alive—"

"Peggy," Chester says gently. "When was the last time you ate a good hot meal?"

"Saturday—no, Friday night," she says, looking at the photographs on the desk and not at him.

He sighs. "Our mutual friend is worried about you."

Her cheeks flush. "I certainly can't control what _Agent Johnson_ is or isn't worried about," she says shortly. "I'd like to request a mission—"

"You are not going to the USSR to chase down a ghost," says Chester firmly. "We've got about a thousand things on our plate, not the least of which is the fact that at this very moment, the United Nations forces, which are mostly our boys, are pinned down at Pusan with their backs to the Yellow Sea."

"That's exactly why we need to move _now_ ," Carter insists. "The Soviets will never expect an espionage mission directly to Leningrad: they're focused on supporting the KPA—"

Phillips takes his glasses off. "Carter, what exactly do you intend to do on the slim chance you find your brother? If he's in worse shape than Barnes? If he's dead?"

"I intend to bring him back home," she says. "If he's dead, then I suppose nothing will have changed at all. If he's in bad shape, we can handle him. Nurse Anderson's psychiatric program is—"

"And you think the CIA will let that go to waste, huh? A British spy turned Soviet spy being harbored by their rival organization? That's another bullet in their gun to get at Barnes, Carter."

"The CIA doesn't have to bally well know if we extract him," Carter snaps, twin spots of color high up on her cheeks. "They've only just installed Beetle Smith as the new director and he could barely handle being Ambassador to the USSR; I highly doubt a man who predicted China wouldn't intervene in Korea is going to—"

Chester crosses his arms. "And if he turns out to be efficient at his new job?"

Carter slaps her hand on the desk. "He doesn't have to be. They already _found our classified headquarters_ ," she snarls, and Phillips raises his eyebrows, surprised at her anger. "They've got to have a mole here, Phillips. Hasn't anyone—"

"You know we've opened an investigation, but with all of the men dead it's not as if they could be questioned," says Phillips. "I know one of them told you he was CIA. I don't believe he was being truthful: they don't have the manpower to pull something like that off right now."

She exhales and pulls her jaw into a tight line. "I'm still requesting to be sent to Leningrad."

"Denied."

"What?"

He leans back. "I said, denied. You're a Director, not a field agent, and with Stark running back and forth all day I need a right-hand man." Phillips waits until her face goes from shock to seething acceptance, and adds, "But I see no reason why you can't organize a team to head to St. Petersberg—Leningrad, sorry—in your place."

"But I don't trust a single agent to do the job properly," she protests.

"Sure you do," he says, looking at her over the rim of his glasses, and watches her look down at the floor. "There you go. Send him. Unless you've gotten into a fight. You haven't gotten into a fight, have you?"

"No," Carter says as evenly as she can, "we have not quarreled."

"That's good. He'll need a partner. How's Barnes doing?"

She sighs. "He's done some thinking and decided he wants to come back to work here as a field agent. He's currently applying to pass his physiological and physical exams. He informed me he was tired of being cooped up in the safe house and I didn't see a reason why he shouldn't do something useful."

"Well, maybe it's a bit early for him to go back to Russia." Chester settles his crossword back down on the desk. "You know, what with the combat fatigue?"

"I'll let the psychologists be the judge of that." She sighs. "Very well. I'll let Agent Johnson know."

"Oh, before you go," he says quickly, looking down at the newsprint. "I need an eight-letter word: begins with a T, oldest town in Norway."

She pauses on her way out. "Tønsberg. And for heaven's sake, turn on a light or you'll strain your eyes."

* * *

"Of _course_ I want to go," says Barnes, eyes gleaming in excitement.

"It might be…difficult for you," Peggy says hesitantly. The three of them are standing on the mats in the gymnasium facing each other: Bucky's still in his PT gear and Steve's standing with his arms crossed, looking stern.

"I can do it," Bucky insists. "It'll be good. I'm not a danger anymore—they tested the trigger words earlier and they don't work on me at all. I'm fine."

"We don't know if they put anything really deep into your subconscious," Steve says. "I'm not sure I like the idea."

"Criminy, you sound like my shrink," Bucky snaps. "I'm not a fu—friggin' headcase anymore," he adds, glancing at Peggy apologetically.

"Nobody's saying you're a headcase," says Peggy as patiently as she can. "The doctors have done their evaluations and proclaimed you fit to go."

"Well, that way we can blame 'em if something goes belly-up," says Steve, half a grin on his face, and Bucky snorts.

"You'll have to be under cover," Peggy tells them. "Nobody can know you're there."

"Well, I'm not wearing tights again," Steve says very seriously, making Bucky laugh out loud.

"Stark's been working on something for you both, actually," Peggy says. "You'll report to the lab after you're briefed on your mission."

"All _right_ ," says Bucky gleefully, hurrying to the showers. Steve hesitates and reaches out, touching Peggy's shoulder as the far door shuts.

"I'm sorry you won't be able to come along. I know it means a lot to you."

Her gut clenches. "Just—please bring him home," she says tightly, refusing to look at Steve, and walks out, trying not to cry.

* * *

"I was thinking," says Bucky, edging over toward Howard as he and Steve take inventory of their new uniforms, "I'd like a new paint job."

"Oh—on your—the arm?" Howard takes off his welding goggles and gives Bucky's left appendage an interested look. "What were you thinking of getting instead?"

"Well, first I want the Soviet star off," he says, peering down at his shoulder. "It's just paint. You can use whatever. But after it's off, I was thinking a smaller star, but white, with a blue circle around it, and a red circle inside it."

"Well, I'm no artist, so no promises, but I've got the time to take the paint off for you," Howard says, pointing at a stool. "Sit on down and take your shirt off. I'll get some paint thinner and a towel."

"I can do it," says Steve suddenly, looking up from his jacket as Bucky sets his shirt to the side. His eyes flicker over the scars and healing tissue around the socket of his shoulder: they'd apparently made their final update to the arm just before April. Bucky had insisted he was fine, but the red, raised flesh tells another story. "If you want, I mean."

"Be my guest," Bucky tells him. "Hey, Stark—get Steve a pencil."

Howard hands Steve a sheet of paper and a grease pencil, then pulls up a seat and starts the process of stripping the paint off Bucky's arm. It takes a bit of time, and Bucky's half-woozy from fumes by the time the star's been erased into scraps of red gunk. By then, Steve's got a sketch finished, and turns it around, tapping with the pencil to show the color. "Red, white, blue," he says. _Tap, tap, tap_.

"Good," says Bucky, waving his hand in front of his nose. "Phew. Go to town."

Steve straddles the chair Howard was on and carefully marks out the lines on the metal with the grease pencil: circle, star, circle. When he's sure it's centered, he picks up the paint Howard scrounged up and carefully marks out the star with a short brush, a coat thin enough to air-dry before he paints out the red circle, then the blue one. He's careful not to let the paint drip too much in the cracks of the arm, and when he's done he sits back, eyeing the new art. "All right. It's dry. How d'you like it?"

Bucky looks down and grins, a slow, wide smile that nearly reaches both ears. "Perfect."

"I don't know why you bothered," says Howard, setting down a clipboard. "It'll be covered up by the jacket anyway."

"Doesn't matter," says Bucky, still looking down at his arm with a look of fierce joy. "I'll know."

* * *

They take a flight directly from DC to Helinski: it's a ten hour trip and Bucky's nodding off by the time they land. From there, they take a passenger flight to Leningrad: a short haul. Steve sits quietly, not speaking, and Bucky, who speaks fluent Russian, pulls off the perfect "Soviet war veteran coming back to the glorious Fatherland" act. He even manages to get a flight attendant's number.

They disembark at the terminal and walk, suitcases in hand, milling past crowds of schoolchildren headed up by stern-faced teachers and chaperones. The kids are all in identical uniforms, the boys in jackets and the girls in blouses buttoned to the neck, even in the August heat. Steve doesn't envy them: he's in his tourist getup, which consists of a light jacket over a button-down shirt, and he's not looking forward to changing into the bulkier combat gear. He crosses his fingers for a colder night.

"Okay, where we going?" he mutters to Bucky as they take a side route into an alley.

"Right," says Bucky, getting oriented. "I remember a few things about Belova. You trust me?"

"Absolutely," says Steve without hesitation.

"Okay. I know she was an instructor at a—a girl's boarding school." Bucky looks as if he's trying to think. "St. Lucia's was one. I think I might have been there, because I know where it is."

"How far from here is it?"

"Uh, about ten miles away. We can get a taxi. I'll do all the talking."

"Great. Let's go." Steve follows him out to the curb, where he flags down a taxi in perfect Russian and climbs in, making room for Steve in the back seat.

* * *

After a bumpy ride to another part of the city, Bucky climbs out, pays the driver, and watches the taxi drive off as Steve stares up at the façade of grey concrete and stone with "ST. ШКОЛА ЛЮСИИ ДЛЯ НЕДОСТАТОЧНЫХ ДЕВОЧЕК" carved above the door. It looks like some ancient Tsar's palace, but the carvings have all been chipped away from the exterior walls.

"Do we knock?" he mutters to Bucky.

"No," Bucky whispers back. "Just follow my lead." He stows his suitcase in a thick laurel bush, and Steve copies him.

They don't have long to wait. A steel-haired matron in sensible shoes walks out, flanked by two Soviet soldiers. " _Zhelanny_ ," she says warmly, none of the warmth in her voice reaching her eyes. " _Ya mogu vam pomoch?"_

Bucky steps forward, smiling brightly. " _Zdravstvuyte madam. My s bratom rodom iz Finlyandii, i my podumali, chto khoteli by posetit' zdes' slavnyye sovetskiye shkoly. My mozhem voyti?"_

She hesitates, but looks interested. " _Staryye soldaty, togda_?"

" _Da_ ," says Steve politely: he can at least make out the gist of what the woman's saying.

" _Nu togda. Devushkam ponravitsya tebya videt'_." She beckons them in with a smile, and they follow her into the large lobby, flanked still by the two silent soldiers. " _Ya Matrona Ol'ga Kuznetsova_. Ah!"

A small girl in a leotard and thick tights scurries up to the woman, looking at the two men with wide eyes. "Matron," she says in perfect English, "I was sent to say you—"

"To _tell_ you," corrects Matron Kuznetsova amiably.

The girl nods. "To tell you that the four o'clock class is ready for instruction, Matron."

"Thank you, Anya," says the matron. "I shall be in shortly. Tell Natalia she will teach the class today: I shall supervise."

The girl curtsies and rushes back down the hall, tiny feet pattering away as her blonde braids bounce. She can't be more than five, Steve thinks: who sends such a young child away to a boarding school?

Matron Kuznetsova seems to read his thoughts. "They are all orphans," she says, waving a hand. "We clothe and feed them and teach them, that they may find their place in the world."

"Their English is very good," says Bucky, in slightly accented English of his own.

"They teach English in Finland, I hear," says the matron, walking along. "Yours is very fine. We shall speak it, then: the girls are required to learn it and Russian is only allowed on the weekends."

"How many girls are here?" asks Steve.

"Oh, about five hundred, between the ages of four and fourteen," she tells him. "Some are sent away to other schools that fit their skills better as they grow older: we instruct them in the arts as well as academics, and last year we had several young ladies join the Bolshoi. They come back when the ballet is not in season to instruct the younger ones."

Something about this is vaguely familiar, and not in a comfortable way. Steve tries not to frown as his mind races. There's _something_ he's missing here, something that he's supposed to ask or see or think, and he can't: it keeps slipping past his mind.

Bucky doesn't seem to notice his confusion. "So many!" he says, eyes wide. "You must have many teachers."

"Oh, we do," she assures him. "In fact—here is one now: _Tovarishch Belova, vy budete razvlekat' nashikh gostey?"_

Steve freezes as Yelena comes toward them out of the shadows. She's just as lethal-looking as he remembers, and if she recognizes Bucky it's going to be a total disaster—but her cool blue eyes drift over them both, and she only nods at the Matron before beckoning to them.

"Good afternoon," she says, polite and friendly. "I am Comrade Belova." She's wearing a severe white blouse and a dark, slightly full waist-nipping skirt that hits at about mid-calf length; her shoes are bland and sensible, her blond hair is pulled back into a coiled braid at the nape of her neck. There's nothing of the Soviet soldier about her now. She just looks like a schoolteacher—drab and serene.

Matron Kusnetsova smiles thinly. "She will give you a tour of the school and anything you wish to see. We welcome our Finnish neighbors most warmly."

"Yes, we do," says Belova blandly as the matron moves away. "Would you gentlemen like to enjoy a drink in one of the sitting rooms?"

"Water, please," says Bucky just as blandly, looking at Steve in alarm as Belova turns her back on them to lead them down the hall. _I think they wiped her_ , he mouths.

 _You think??_ Steve mouths back, glancing at the back of the woman's head.

They enter a small sitting room, which appears to have been severely renovated in the past forty years. The plaster is chipped away and smoothed over, the silk wallpaper that certainly once graced the stone has been torn down, and the chairs are plain and functional. Belova shuts the door and pours them each a glass of water from a pitcher, then takes her seat primly. "Now, what would you gentlemen like to see first?" she asks. "It is not every day we entertain old soldiers."

"Oh, I'm sure," says Bucky, gulping the water and setting it aside. "We are searching for a man, Comrade. Michael Carter. Do you know him?"

Yelena's face goes curiously blank, and she blinks twice, then shakes her head, smiling. "I'm afraid I know no man by that name," she says. "An Englishman? There are no Englishmen here."

Bucky shifts his weight, and Steve can tell he's getting antsy. "No, he wouldn't be English, would he?" he muses, as if to himself. "Not if he joined up with you. You know who I am?"

Her smile fades. "I really do not—"

"Yelena," he says urgently. "Steve, guard the door."

Steve rises to block it, and Yelena's blue eyes flicker from him to Bucky, real shock and uncertainty in them. "Comrade, you really must not… how do you know my name?"

"You know me," says Bucky. "Look at me."

"I do not know you," she says, color rising in her cheeks. "Let me out of this room or I will scream for Matron Olga—"

"Scream all you want," says Bucky, and takes off his left glove, showing her his metal fingers. Her face undergoes an extraordinary metamorphosis: Yelena's eyes go wide and her face turns the color of curdled milk as she chokes, then lets her mouth drop open. "You know me."

"K—k—" She can't make herself say it. Tears gather in her eyes. "You c-came _back—_ I told him you would—" Both hands fly up to grasp at her head. "No. _No_ , I do not know you. I don't _know you—"_

"This isn't gonna work," Steve says urgently.

"We’re miles away from any of the kids and we're a match for her." Bucky's eyes never leave Yelena's face. "Come on, Yelena. You can do it. You were always stronger than them."

"Stubborn," she says, as if she's gasping for air. "So stubborn my heart fights with m-my head." Her eyes dart back and forth, white around the edges and wild. "Someone said that. I don't know who. He s-said—"

"Yelena—"

"I don't _know you!_ " she screams, and lashes out. Steve barely has time to blink before she's flying at Bucky's face, fighting him tooth and nail: it's only the metal arm that gives Bucky an advantage. She's faster than anything Steve's ever seen and jams an elbow into his face, blood spurting from his nose. "I don't _know you I don't know you I don't—"_

"Shit," curses Bucky, choking on blood. "Steve, don't let her leave—"

Steve ducks as Yelena goes for him. She gets one arm wrapped around his throat and she swings, trying to yank him down to the floor with momentum, and it's such a bizarrely familiar feeling that he almost laughs, blocking it easily and pinning her down. "Okay," he pants, hands locked around her elbows as she struggles on the floor, "big breaths. We'll figure this out."

Yelena rears her head back and smashes him in the eye with her forehead. He doesn't let go, but a gash above his eyebrow opens and blood streams down his face. "Let _go_ of me, you _pig_!"

"You don't—have to be—afraid," he grunts through his teeth.

"No, _you_ should be afraid," she spits, thrashing and wild-eyed. " _Krasnaya komnata."_

"What?" gasps Steve, still struggling to see out of one eye. "Bucky, what did she—"

"Let me _go_!" Belova lunges with her upper body and bites Steve hard in the meat of his neck, and he lets out a shout as her teeth dig into his skin, drawing blood.

" _Zolotoy!_ " shouts Bucky, and Yelena releases Steve, going still as water. The other man drags himself closer, pushing Steve off the woman and pulling her upright to face him. "You know that name, don't you? Huh? Come on. I know you do."

There are tears spilling down her face, and she's as white as frost. " _K-kotenik_ ," she gasps, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. "I s-said—I said I'd remember, if they w-wiped me—"

"And I remembered," he tells her. "Golden. For your hair. Right?"

Yelena begins to cry silently, shaking as Bucky holds her by the shoulders. "Oh, God," she weeps. "They wiped me—they took me back and I didn't want to, I forgot and I didn't want to—I _forgot_ —"

Steve pulls the crumpled photograph out of his pocket and shows her. "This man. You know him?" He points at the silhouette of Michael Carter, black and white and as flat as a gravestone.

"Yes," she says simply, shutting her eyes. "Yes. I know him. He—he's here."

"Can you take us to him?" Bucky presses urgently.

"I—I think so," she manages, blinking as if she's just woken up. " _Kotenik_ , it's really you?"

"Yeah," he says. "Did they wipe you when I escaped?"

"No," she says, looking as if she's concentrating very hard as Steve and Bucky help her to her feet. Her hands automatically smooth down her skirt, fix her hair, her blouse. "No, I—they wiped me…something else. I don't—I don't remember. But you're _here_ now…"

"We have to move," says Steve, eyes on the door.

"You're bleeding," says Yelena distantly. "I—I will handle it. I can handle it. Let's go."

* * *

They make it up a set of back stairs, Yelena taking them up four flights and down a hall, then into another hall; past a green baize door and up another flight of stairs. The place is a veritable maze, and Steve's head is spinning by the time they make it into what was clearly once used as servant's quarters in whatever building this used to be. The floors up here are gray wood, the walls plain plaster, and Yelena takes them both into a small, dingy garret room.

"Uchi," she says softly, shutting the door behind her. "You have guests."

A light flickers on, and Steve's heart jumps into his throat as a long-legged, lean man unfolds himself from a chair and stands, silhouetted against the bare bulb. He looks nothing like Peggy at first: his eyes are gray as a storm where hers are warm and brown—but then Steve sees the eyebrows: the shape and set—the cheekbones, high and sharp and mirrored in his sister's face a thousand miles away.

"I never have guests," he says softly, eyes flickering from Bucky to Steve with mild distrust.

"These men—they are looking for Michael Carter," Yelena says, looking just as unsettled as Steve feels. "You know this one." She indicates Bucky.

Carter looks at him, and his face changes to horror and shock. "The Asset," he murmurs, half to himself, and turns back. "Yelena—"

"They helped me remember," she says quickly, as if afraid of him. "I don't—I don't remember all of it—"

He turns back to them. "Who's your friend?" he asks Bucky.

"This is Steve. He's a very old friend, and he knows your sister," Bucky tells him, and Michael Carter swallows hard, the lines of his face going tense.

"I don't have—I—"

"You do," says Steve, stepping forward. "Her name's Margaret. She thought you were dead. She misses you and she told me—she told me to bring you home."

Michael sinks into his chair again, eyes gone distant. "No," he says softly. "No… Peggy. She—she was always called Peggy."

"Yeah, she is," Steve says, fighting tears of his own.

"This is because of that file from the war, isn't it?" he asks, looking up with some difficulty to focus on Steve.

"That's part of it," says Bucky. "Be nice to know where it is, because people want it to frame your sister. Any ideas?"

"I gave it to the MGB," says Michael, shoulders sagging. "God help me." His hands begin to shake. "I gave it to them. I'm sorry. I gave it to them."

"Hey, don't panic," says Bucky, coming closer. "My name's—I'm James Barnes. We're going to get you out of here, all right?"

"No," says Michael forcefully, looking up. "I can't leave."

"Mikhail—" Yelena edges closer. "Of course you can—"

"She doesn't understand," he says, turning to Steve and Bucky. "Not now. They wiped her after someone caught her expressing negative sentiment toward the program. She can't remember why I stay."

"So tell us," Bucky says simply. "Tell us why. We'll help you."

 _Program?_ Steve thinks, baffled.

"Anya," he says, face anguished. "They don't wipe me, they don't need to—I'm _stuck_ here, don't you see? Helpless. I teach these girls how to load and fire rifles—"

"Who's Anya?" asks Yelena, unperturbed.

He gives her a desperate look, as if he might burst into tears. "My daughter," he says instead, voice cracking. "She is almost five. They do not know she is mine."

Bucky exchanges a shocked look with Steve. "She—she's blond, right? We saw her coming in."

"But—who was the mother?" Yelena demands, looking stunned.

"It doesn't matter now," Michael whispers. "We left her on the steps with a note: she was taken in as a newborn and this is the only life she'll ever know. If I go—if I abandon my own _child_ —what kind of man am I?"

"Take her with you," says Yelena. "You go with them and take Anya."

Michael gives her a tormented look. "You don't know what you're asking me to do, Yelena."

She grips his wrist with sudden ferocity, blue eyes blazing. "If that girl is yours, Uchi, she must stay with you, wherever you go. She is your blood. Take her and get out of this place before they take your memory like they have taken mine. Find your sister. Be happy again. I—I don't remember much, but I know I wanted you to be happy; I know you were special to me."

"Yes," he murmurs, looking at her. "Yes, you were special to me, too, Yelena."

"Then go," she says, throat tight. "Go with Anya. I—I can get her out. I can cause a distraction so nobody notices; take her to the yard and wait for these two down the road. They can pick her up. You can leave with them—go out the side doors. Steal one of the cars if you have to; you know where they are."

Michael's hands are still shaking like leaves in the wind. "Oh, God, Yelena," he says brokenly. "Then let's do it, before I change my mind like a coward."

* * *

True to her word, Yelena makes her way back downstairs to the ballroom they're using for dance lessons after leaving the Asset and his friend in Michael's charge. Steve, she thinks the Asset said the other man's name was. Steve is big and much stronger than any man has a right to be, and she can't help but wonder if, perhaps, the Americans have been working on something like their _sverkhchelovek_ program.

She's sure she's seen him before, but she can't bring herself to remember where or when.

"Anya," she says curtly, beckoning to the girl as she changes back into her uniform: her lessons are over, and the girl obediently patters up, looking up at her and waiting. "You are to come with me at once." There is no point telling the girl to pack a bag: the girls own nothing sentimental.

"Yes, Comrade," says Anya picking up her pace and trotting alongside her.

"You have a very important mission to go on with our comrade Uchitel and two of his friends," Yelena says quietly, taking her away from the main halls and down the side. The little girl's eyes light up in excitement: she has always liked Uchi. "You must do exactly as I say."

"I will," says Anya as they come to a halt.

"Good. Now, you know the way to the courtyard, where we do our physical exercises?"

"Yes." The girl's gray eyes are large and serious.

"You will go there at once, as soon as we are finished here. I will meet you by the door: hide behind the laurel bush so that nobody can see you from the windows." Yelena tucks her fingers under the girl's chin. "Do you understand?"

"I understand," says Anya.

"Go, then. Quick and quiet." Yelena watches as the girl turns immediately and ducks, weaving along the shadows as she's been taught to. A swell of pride fills her, and she's not sure why: Anya means nothing to her. She's a good little student, but—well, she is Uchi's daughter, and—no, there is a fondness in her heart for little Anya that Yelena does not fully understand.

She turns and goes for the kitchens. A bottle of vodka and a napkin is all she needs; she knows her business well.

* * *

"Down here," Michael says, directing Steve and Bucky down the back stairs. "We'll wait for Yelena's signal and go then."

"What's the signal?" asks Bucky.

"You'll know," he says dryly. They huddle into a small alcove on a landing, listening. "Does my sister still take her tea with milk and no sugar?" he asks suddenly.

"She sure does," says Steve. "And no matter how I make tea, she insists I'm doing it wrong."

Michael smiles. "Good." His smile fades slightly. "God, I wish I hadn't given the damn MGB that file."

"Not your fault," says Bucky. "We all do things we regret under pressure. You're trying to survive."

The man looks taken aback. "I—I suppose I hadn't thought of it that way," he admits. "I expect Peggy's married to Fred Wells by now. Lord—I haven't seen her in _ten years_."

"Who?" Steve asks blankly.

Michael shoots him a look. "Thank God," he mutters. "Bloody hated the man. Home Office fellow who wanted to keep her at Bletchley Park for the rest of the war. Didn't understand her at all. Do you know, the last time I saw her was at her engagement party?"

Steve blinks. "She was _engaged_?"

"And fiercely opposed to my suggesting she was meant to be a fighter, not someone who sat in an office and did paperwork." Michael sighs. "I expect you likely can't tell me what she does, then."

"She's our boss," Bucky interjects. "And a damn good one."

Carter beams. "Good for her."

"And she's not married to anyone," says Steve. "Yet," he adds.

"Probably too busy for a beau," says Michael.

"I wouldn't say that," Steve says, trying very hard not to look at Michael in the face.

Below them, there's a loud bang, as if someone has set off fireworks. "That's our signal," says Michael. "Right. Follow me, and look as if you know where you're going."

* * *

"Out!" cries Yelena, waving smoke away from her face as she evacuates the girls from the front ballroom. "Quickly, girls. Report to the back courtyard! There's a fire!"

The girls from the five o'clock class hurry out, eyes wide and voices raised in worry as they run in their slippers down the smoke-filled hall. Matrons come from the other doors, shouting and directing, and it's utter chaos: Yelena makes out the three men creeping down the stairs and thinks: _Good, they won't be seen._ If all goes to plan, Anya will be in the side yard by now, hiding in the laurels. The men hurry past her without looking at her, and the great front door opens: they're out, and safe.

Mission accomplished.

She's just stepped back into the clean air of the empty ballroom for a breath when something wraps around her throat, and Yelena staggers backward, catching herself and coming up on her feet to face whatever had just—

Oh. Yes. Yelena reconsiders and realizes she has made one mistake: likely fatal.

She had forgotten about Natalia.

The twenty-three year old instructor has been with the Bolshoi for almost five years. She is small, lithe, and as deadly as she is beautiful: a true pinnacle of both the _krasnaya komnata_ and the _sverkhchelovek_ program. She is still wearing her ballet clothing: a black leotard, slippers, nothing else. Her fire-colored mane has been tied into a knot atop her head: perfect, not a hair out of place even as she adjusts her weight and lowers a shoulder, staring at Yelena. All the venom in the world seems to shine in both of her green eyes.

"You set the fire," she snarls.

"If you kill me, you'll never know why," Yelena spits.

Natalia Alianovna Romanoff's eyes narrow. "I don't care," she says coolly, and leaps for Yelena, going for the throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> -Russian translations!   
> \--Matron to Bucky and Steve: "Welcome, how can I help you?"  
> \--Bucky: "Hello, ma'am. My brother and I are from Finland and we thought we would like to tour the glorious Soviet schools here. May we come in?"  
> \--Matron: "Old soldiers, then?" "Well, then they girls will like to see you." "I am Matron Olga Kuznetsova" "Comrade Belova, will you entertain our guests?"  
> -Finland had a tentative relationship with the USSR that undoubtedly would fill a history book itself.
> 
> This week I find myself the proud foster mom of three very nervous five week old kittens who were rescued from a street and need a lot of attention and cuddles so I can't promise extremely regular updates for a while. Never fear, though: this WILL NOT be an abandoned work. I love you all too much to do that to you.


	17. September 9, 1950

Michael Carter leans down and picks up Anya on their way to the garage. The sun is lowering, but won't set for hours and Steve and Bucky are running behind him with their retrieved bags. "Hello, _milaya_ ," he says cheerfully.

"Comrade Belova was supposed to come get me," she says, gray eyes wide. "Why hasn't she come?"

"I expect she's been held up. Don't worry about it. We must go now." Michael runs with her and the little girl clings to his neck, bouncing up and down as she watches the other two men with interest.

"Who are they?" she asks.

"They are very good friends of mine," he tells her as they round the corner into the garage, which is full of gleaming black cars. "We are going on an adventure, you and I and my friends Steven and James."

"Which one is which?" she asks, twisting around to see better. She's immediately distracted by the cars. "Ooh, Uchi, can we take the Pobeda?"

"I don't see why not. In you go, _malen'kaya_." Michael opens the door and slides her in, joining her in the backseat while Steve climbs into the passenger side and Bucky hotwires the car, bringing the engine roaring to life.

"Where are we going?" asks Bucky, accelerating and bouncing down the gravel to the main road.

"Drive in circles for a while. I know the area. If anyone follows us, they'll be easy to spot." Michael turns his attention back to Anya, who is sitting primly on the seat, looking excited but slightly nervous. "Anya. I must tell you something important."

"Yes, Uchi," she says, as attentive as if she was sitting in a briefing.

"You—you have a papa. We had thought you were an orphan, but we were mistaken: you are not." Tears are welling in the man's eyes despite his stiff upper lip, and he wipes at his face with the back of his hand. "And your papa—he has a marvelous sister, you see: a very kind lady with no children of her own at all, and you will meet her once we get to America."

"But—my schooling," she says, looking confused. "I don't understand."

"You'll go to school in America, or perhaps England," he reassures her. "Don't worry, you won't get out of exams that easily." She looks glum at that, and Michael has to smile.

"Not to, uh, bother you, but I think we're being followed." Steve's got his eyes trained on the rear view mirror. "Black car."

"Start driving toward Finland," Michael instructs. "Stay on the highway. If they're following us, they'll alert the MGB to the presence of intruders and they'll be waiting for us at the airport. Our best bet will be crossing the border in the car or on foot."

"We have fake passports," says Bucky, eyes on the road. "What about you and Anya?"

"I've been in possession of one for her declaring Anya as English ever since she was born," he says tightly, and hands Steve the envelope. "Anna Margaret Carter. My own papers—well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Bucky merges onto the highway and drives calmly toward the border. "They're not letting up," he says uneasily.

Michael checks their surroundings and rolls the window down, deftly tossing a small item he yanks from a pocket out to the road and rolling it back up. "When I tell you, Barnes—take a hard right," he says, and an explosion goes off behind them, making Anya shriek in surprise. "Now!"

Bucky yanks the wheel and the Pobeda goes careening off down a side road, a dirt road that bumps and grinds against the tires. Anya clings to Michael for dear life and he continues to give Bucky directions: right, left, further on, turn here, again here.

By the time they come to a halt, they're in a thick wood, with no other person around for miles. "Let's get changed," says Steve, climbing out of the car. "Our gear's knifeproof, and I don't plan on going up against the MGB without it."

"Hurry," says Michael. "Both of you. Five minutes."

* * *

Bucky slips the detached sleeve off his metal arm, tucking it into the suitcase for later. He doesn't care: let the fucking MGB see the new paint job. Let them see what he's chosen to be, not what they made him. "It'll be covered up by the jacket anyway," he mocks in a sing-song voice, remembering Stark's words back at the lab. "Fuck you too, Howard."

He shuts the hood of the car with a soft bang and sees Anya, staring at him with interest. "Who's Howard?" she pipes at him in her little-girl voice.

"Uh, a friend. Well, not a friend. An annoying guy. Thinks he knows everything." Bucky's hoping beyond all hope that she doesn't repeat the rest of what he said.

"Oh. That's why you said 'fuck you'," says Anya knowingly.

Bucky's face goes hot. "That's a bad word. Don't say it."

"Why? You sad it." She trails him to the other side of the car, where Steve is buckling his belt.

Bucky turns red. "Because it's a grownup word."

"Are you really the Asset?" Anya climbs up on the seat of the car inside the open back door.

"I used to be," he says. "See?" Bucky flexes his metal hand, and she watches in fascination as the plates shift and flex, his fingers gleaming in the light.

"You're gonna scare her," says Steve, reproachful.

"No he won't," says Anya, sticking her chin out. "I'm not a _baby_."

"You got that backup radio?" asks Bucky, trying to change the subject.

"Right here." Steve pats his belt. He's in his new duds, which Bucky has to admit don't look half-bad: a long-sleeved, armored top so dark blue it's almost black with five subtle lines radiating from the center of his chest to suggest the absence, or maybe the idea of a star: a utility belt similar to his old one, black leather and thick pouches. His pants are simple, loose paratrooper-style trousers made of dark brown canvas, and he's got on black tactical boots.

Bucky's got a new costume, too. It reminds him of the jacket he wore when he was a Howling Commando—it's dark blue, a shade lighter than Steve's, and double-breasted with horizontal seams along the front. It's made of heavy, protective material instead of canvas, and his pants look like Steve's. There's no patch or insignia: these are made for practical espionage, not to uphold some higher ideal to the world, and he's more than all right with that.

"Let's go," says Michael, belting his canvas field jacket on. "Anya, you sit with Mr. Steven in the back. I'll drive up here with James."

"Yes, Uchi," she says obediently, and clambers on in, Steve following her as Michael slips behind the wheel and gets the car going. Anya fixes Steve with a bright stare as they bounce off up the dirt roads, weaving in and out of the trees under Michael Carter's hands.

"What's up?" asks Steve, blinking at her.

"What's what?" she asks, confused.

"Oh—no, it's something kids say in America. It means, what's going on, or what is happening." He smiles. "You ever been to America?"

"No," she says firmly. "My instructors say it is a dangerous place and not to be trusted."

"It's not too bad," says Steve. "The food's pretty good. It'll get better."

"Americans all eat apple pie and hamburgers," says Anya, wrinkling her nose.

"Oh, yeah?" Steve tries not to laugh.

"Yes. And they have too many things and don't care about others at all. It's selfish."

"Well, Americans do have a lot of things," Steve allows. "But I think they do care about others, just not in ways that you might think. I think everyone cares about others."

Anya frowns, but her face smooths out after a moment. "I have to be a-daptable," she says, stumbling over the large word. "That's what they said."

"Who's _they_?" Steve checks his sidearm just to be sure.

"My instructors. Like Uchi. In the Red Room."

_Red Room._

Steve almost chokes as they merge back onto the highway and streak toward the Finnish border. "I see," he says, trying not to panic. So _that_ was the cover story? A boarding school?

Anya doesn't seem to pick up his fear. "Matron Olga says that we must learn to find our place in the world." Her great gray eyes glance up at Steve, and she lowers her voice fearfully.  "I don't like her. She smells like smoke and peppermints."

"Well, you won't have to see her again," says Steve.

"Bad news," says Michael tensely. "We're still being followed."

"How far to the border?" Bucky's looking out the rear view mirror.

"About an hour. We're still on a highway—they won't shoot at us—"

There's a terrific _bang_ , and the Pobeda goes careening off the road, Michael fighting for control of the wheel as Anya shrieks and Steve grabs her tightly to his side, bracing both of them against the seat in front. They slam into the ditch with an impact hard enough to shatter the glass in the windshield, and Steve immediately pulls his head up and checks on Anya.

"I'm okay," she says breathlessly, her tiny hands clinging to Steve. "Uchi?"

"All right here, _milaya_ ," says Michael with some difficulty from the front seat. Steve hears the tinkle of broken glass as the man shifts. "Barnes—"

"Fine," rasps Bucky from the passenger side. "What—" The door to a car slams shut above them on the ridge, and footsteps crunch through the underbrush.

"Get out," gasps Michael, eyes wide. "Get _out_ —"

Bucky throws himself out of the car and Steve follows suit, clinging to Anya tightly. Above the ridge, up near the road, there's a woman in a black balaclava, only her eyes showing above her black-clad body, and she's got a rifle. Steve doesn't register the make or model of the weapon, just turns instinctively to cover Anya.

"Carter's leg is broken," Bucky says. "Take the girl and get out of here."

"I'm not leaving you to fight alone again," Steve snaps.

"She's _five_ , now take her and _go_ —"

The woman raises her rifle in a way that's almost leisurely, and aims directly at Carter, who's still struggling to get out of the wreck of steel and glass that the Pobeda has become.

"Uchi!" screams Anya in terror, and Steve raises his own sidearm without thinking, squeezing off four shots from the Colt 45. One of the shots hits the woman in the leg, sending her crumpling down, and Bucky takes advantage of her distraction to tear open the mangled door of the car with his metal arm and drag Carter out to safety.

"Shit," he says, looking down at the blood on Carter's right leg. "Don't try to stand up."

"It's—fine—" Carter struggles to move.

"Buck! We've got a _problem—"_ Steve snatches up Anya in one arm and aims his pistol toward the woman with the other. She's staggering back up to her feet, and swings the rifle up to her shoulder. He's close enough to see her eyes: sea-green, round, horrifyingly familiar in a way he can't place.

Bucky flings himself in front of Michael, arms outspread, because it's the only thing he can do as the woman's finger squeezes the trigger.

" _Bucky!_ " screams Steve.

The bullet tears through the material of his blue jacket, a crimson stain blooming just below Bucky's navel, exits Bucky's lower back, and hits Michael Carter in the hip.

" _Uchi!_ " Anya wails, high and fearful, as Bucky staggers and cups his belly.

Steve drops her and rushes the woman. She's not expecting it, still sighting down the barrel of her rifle for another shot, so she's caught off-guard when all one hundred and ninety pounds of Steve Rogers slams into her from the right side and throws her to the ground. He straddles her waist and tears the rifle out of her hands, beating her in the face with the butt and flinging it aside as her hands fly up to cup her nose. She can't move him off her, and her eyes are wide and terrified as she struggles.

His hand finds the balaclava and he tears it off, her red hair spilling down to her shoulders, her white face fixed on his—

Her face. Her _face._

Steve feels all the rage leave him as quickly as it had come. " _Natasha?_ " he gasps.

"Who the hell are _you?_ " she spits, disoriented and angry. She tries to rear back and head-butt him, but he seizes her by the hair, yanking her head down and immobilizing her.

No. This isn't _his_ Natasha, this isn't Nat: this can't be, this is—

Who _is_ this?

"Who else is following us?" he demands, shaking her.

"Nobody!" she gasps. "The girl is ours—it's _my_ mission—"

A pair of hands drags Steve off her, and the next thing he knows, Bucky is standing, dragging the woman to her feet as he wraps his hands around her throat and slams her upright into a tree. She chokes, scrabbling at his metal fingers, absolute terror in her face. "You know who I am," he snarls, smeared in blood.

Steve looks back down at the bottom of the ridge: little Anya is sitting with her father, tiny hands pressing down on the wound at his hip. Trying to help. He's still alive, his face white as his chest rises and falls.

"Yes," Natasha—no, not Natasha—chokes, kicking at him. "Asset. _Zimniy soldat."_

"You know what I can do to you," he says, low and quiet.

Her green eyes find Steve, pleading, and he steps forward, instinct taking over. "Don't hurt her—"

Bucky's incredulous. "Don't _hurt her_? She shot Carter _through me—_ "

_Odessa…my tires…I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me._

A chill goes up Steve's spine he can't shake. "Just ask her and knock her out. Don't kill her."

Barnes turns back to her. "Does the MGB know we're here?" Bucky demands.

She shakes her head, red strands plastered to her forehead with sweat. "No," she chokes, her fingers curled around his. "No. It was my mission. I—I told no one—"

"We need to kill her," Bucky says, and the woman goes stiff. "She's the only one who knows—"

"No," snarls Steve. "You _can't_."

"What the _hell_ is the matter with you? She's a fucking Black Widow!" Bucky shakes her by the throat like a dog with a rat, and she struggles to get a breath, her lips going pale. "They're trained in the Red Room. I was—I was an instructor there, sometimes. This is what Anya would have become if we'd let her stay there. She's a monster. The only thing she's capable of doing is murder."

_Bright, sunny day in London: Natasha's hands curled around a Starbucks cup as she teaches Steve how to mix the whipped cream in his drink with the coffee properly_

_"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?"_

_Tears shimmering above a mouthful of peanut butter sandwich, eyes red and worn_

_Clint Barton, anguish written across his face at the shore of the lake: "It was supposed to be me! Sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone—"_

"No," says Steve again, voice thick. " _No_. Let her go."

Bucky gives her a look of pure loathing, but lets her go, the woman sliding to the forest floor with finger-shaped bruises around her throat already, gasping for air. "She _shot_ me," he snaps again, as if Steve needs reminding: blood stains the bracken around him.

"Your name," says Steve, crouching. "It's still Natalia, right?"

He eyes snap up to him. "Yes," she says. "You should have let him kill me."

"That's not gonna happen if I can help it."

"You don't even _know_ me," Natalia hisses, eyes full of wary caution and a tinge of fear.

"No," he answers honestly. "I don't. Not now. But I will, I think. Or I did. Maybe I won't, not in this life. But I know what you're capable of, and I know it's not all murder and mayhem and fighting."

Something stirs in the depths of her eyes. "You're wrong," she insists, unsettled. "You—who _are_ you?"

"I could be a friend," he says. "One day."

Natalia's eyes go hard and with a small sound of metal rasping on metal, she whips out a blade the size of her finger and as sharp as ice before driving it into the joint of Steve's left shoulder, where it buries itself deeply in the flesh before she lets go, backing away and staring at him like a trapped animal.

" _Don't_ ," warns Steve, fingers automatically grasping the thing as Bucky makes to go after her. "God, I was really hoping I'd get through another month without being stabbed."

Natalia watches in shock as he adjusts his weight and carefully pulls the blade out, gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain. " _Sverkhchelovek,"_ she mutters, eyes tracking the blood staining his dark clothing black. "Like me."

"Yeah, whatever that means," Steve grinds out between his teeth. "Look, you ever want to defect, you ask for Agent Johnson from the—"

"Mister _James_ ," shouts Anya in despair from below. It seems to wake Natalia up: she jerks to attention, remembering the mission at hand, and scrambles to get down to the hollow with the wrecked car and Michael Carter's broken body and Anya, alone and vulnerable.

She never gets past Bucky. Metal flashes, and his fist swings out, cold-cocking her and knocking her flat and out like a light on the forest floor.

"Well, that went well," says Steve, looking down at her. She's so _young:_ she can't possibly be over twenty-five, and—it's 1950. How the _hell_ is Natasha Romanoff alive in _nineteen fifty_?

Bucky presses a hand to his gut and grunts. "I don't know about you," he says, spitting out a gob of blood, "but I'm ready to call it a day."

"Carter," says Steve, getting to his feet. Bucky starts down the ridge, and Steve hesitates for a moment beside the woman who isn't Nat and who _is_ Nat, then puts the knife she stabbed him with in her hand, curling her limp fingers around it.

He can't think of a thing to say, so he just follows Barnes down to Michael and Anya, boots crunching across the ground.

* * *

Anya's staring at them with wide, serious eyes when they reach her, both hands bloody to the elbows and holding a wad of cloth that Bucky figures out is from her blouse to Michael's hip. "He's bleeding a lot," she informs them, far too stern for a five year old.

"So are we, kid," says Bucky, kneeling down and checking Carter's vitals. "Hey, pal. Eyes up here."

Michael coughs. "Heard your little skirmish up there. Shocked you made it out alive." He clears his throat. "Rather shocked _I'm_ alive, come to think of it."

"We're stealing her car," says Steve. "Anya, you stay close while we get him in, all right?"

She nods and sticks to Steve's side while they drag Michael upright, sling him over their shoulders, and hike up the side of the road to the idling car: a vehicle that's for utility and not for luxury, one Steve can't name. The keys are still in the ignition, and Bucky crams himself into the front seat after he lays Michael out across the backseat. Anya squeezes in on the floor, kneeling, and Steve sits by the man's head, digging through Natalia's knapsack.

She had a first aid kit, so Steve puts it to good use sopping up the blood. There's nothing to set a broken bone, so Michael endures the drive with a gray face, holding Anya's hand. "You did very well," he says. "Very brave. Like your mama."

Anya uses her shoulder to wipe her eyes. "Who is she?" she asks.

"Oh, I will tell you," he assures her. "One day."

"Are you my papa, Uchi?" she asks tearfully. He doesn't reply, just looks at her. "You are, aren't you?"

"Yes, Anya," he says, choking up. Steve looks away to give him some privacy—as much as he can give the man with his body stuffed into the space of the backseat. "Yes. And I love you very much."

"I pretended you were, sometimes," she says, sniffling. "I'm glad."

"We're going to be very happy," he says softly. "You, and me. You'll get to meet your aunt, too."

"Will she like me?" Anya asks anxiously.

"Of course she will," says Steve, applying more pressure to the hip as Michael grits his teeth.

"Steven," says Michael, eyes fluttering. "Important."

"What?" Steve leans down. "What is it?"

The man takes a dragging breath, looking ghastly in the sunshine streaming through the car windows. "Hydra," he whispers. "If I don't make it—"

"You will," says Steve firmly.

"Listen," he pants, his pulse quick and shallow in his throat. "Hydra. They've infiltrated—CIA. Working…MGB. Can't be trusted. Everywhere. Nobody. Tell—tell someone. Tell Peg."

Steve's heart sinks like a stone. "I will," he says darkly. "I'll root out every single one of them if I have to do it myself with my bare hands."

"Engineering…war." Michael's eyes flicker shut. "Anya, darling," he whispers. "Will you tell me a story?"

"I only know the ones Comrade Belova says," whispers Anya. "Do you know The Princess Who Wouldn't Smile?"

"No, _milaya_. Tell it to me while I sleep for a bit." His hand curls around hers, trembling a little. Steve can't do a damn thing about the shock except hope it doesn't kill him, and he holds onto Michael Carter's head, willing him silently to stay alive, stay alive: at least until he can radio for help once they're out of the forest. His shoulder is burning like fire, his arm going strangely numb, and he's sure Bucky can last a while longer, but he doesn't know how long.

"Once upon a time," Anya begins, voice trembling but growing stronger as she clings to her father, "there was a princess who never smiled or laughed, and her father promised whoever could make her laugh would marry her…"

* * *

When Peggy Carter's radio crackles into bursts of static, it's eleven in the morning and she's just finished her second cup of coffee.

She drops the empty mug on the floor and snatches the radio up, fiddling with the dial. "Hello?" she gasps, standing near her office window so that the signal can reach. " _Hello?_ "

"… _eggy_ ," says a half-burst of voice through the speaker. " _Thi—nson. Jo—car—"_

"Steve?" she cries, and shakes the radio furiously: maybe kicking the thing will make it work better. These are Howard's invention, these transatlantic radios powered by God-knows-what and sheer willpower, and she has no idea how to fix them. "Barnes? Anyone? Do you copy?"

The radio crackles again, and a child's voice comes through: a little girl. " _Is this—Director Carter?"_ she asks, tremulous and high.

Peggy freezes. "Yes," she says quickly, hands trembling and cold. "Yes. Who is this?"

" _Please,"_ says the child, sounding as if she might cry. " _We're in the woods. Papa isn't waking up, and Mr. James and Mr. Steven are sick—"_ There's more static, and she hears Steve's voice, then, low and rough and weak.

" _Peggy,"_ he says, slurring his words as if he's drunk. " _Requesting…medevac. We're past the Finnish border, but we're…stuck in the trees. Location. Lo…location…"_

"Turn your beacon on," she orders, racing out of the office and down the halls. "The one on the radio. We'll find you. I swear on my _life_ we'll find you. _Howard!"_

 _"I think… I was poisoned,"_ says Steve faintly. " _Can't really… think too well. Anya, want to say hi to your aunt again?"_

Peggy freezes in place: _aunt_? "Steve?"

The little girl's back on the radio. " _Are you really my aunt?"_ she asks.

Howard slides out of the lab door on the soles of his shoes. "What's—"

"They're out. They're in Finland. I told Steve to turn the beacon on, but something's wrong; he sounds disoriented and he said something about being poisoned." Peggy depresses the button. "Anya? Are you still there?"

" _Yes_ ," says the girl.

"Is your—" Peggy fights a sob. "Your father. Is his name Michael Carter?"

" _That's what Mr. James said,"_ says Anya.

 _Oh, God._ "Then it appears I am indeed your aunt. Can you tell me where Mr. James is and how he looks?" Peggy races after Howard and into the hangar, where he's already firing up the small cargo plane he's just finished bolting together, fresh Stark Industries tech straight off the factory line. Her office clothing is entirely unsuitable for flying to Finland, so she yanks off her blouse and changes right there in the hangar while Howard has his back turned, checking the engines.

Anya's voice pipes through the speaker on the radio as Peggy drags on sensible boots and a shirt, a jacket, trousers. " _He's in the front,"_ she says. " _He was shot in the stomach, I think. He's sleeping, but he's breathing. He's been asleep for a little bit. Mr. Steven is going to sleep. I think Natalia poisoned him."_

"Poisoned him?" Peggy snatches up the radio again. "Anya, how did Mr. Steve get poisoned?"

" _Oh, a knife,"_ Anya assures her. _"She sometimes puts things on the blade, like poison. Lots of knives. She did a class for us once. She shot Mr. James, too, and made our car crash."_

Peggy rushes to the telephone on the wall and dials the infirmary. "This is Director Carter," she says. "I'm requesting four personnel for a Level Three medevac. Report to Hangar Three at once. Repeat, at _once_." She presses the button down on the radio. "You said you were still in the woods?" she asks. "Are there lots of trees?"

" _Yes,"_ says Anya. " _Mr. James said we had to find cover. We got around the border station but now I don't know where we are."_

"That's all right," Peggy reassures her. "We're coming to get you in a very fast plane. We should be there in—in at least six hours. Can you hold out till then?"

" _I don't know if my papa will wake up,"_ she says, sounding very small. " _Can you hurry?"_

"I'll certainly try my damndest," says Peggy, and looks past Howard to see the doors opening and four nurses in field gear racing toward them, Bea Anderson's curly hair bouncing up and down on her forehead. Relief, however small, blooms in her chest. "We're on our way. Keep the radio nearby, all right? I'll check in every hour. You stay with everyone and you let me know if anything changes."

" _Okay,"_ says Anya, sounding frightened, but determined, and the signal goes dead.

* * *

The trip to Finland takes just under six hours, even going at the fastest speed Howard can produce. He sits in the pilot's seat with his sleeves rolled up, dipping into clouds, flicking on the radar cloaking when they're over Soviet territory: it won't do to be shot down or cause an international incident, and when they lock onto the beacon and land about five miles from the Russian border, the sun is just below the horizon, casting the land and trees in an otherworldly shade of electric blue. The Land of the Midnight Sun indeed, Peggy thinks as Howard lands and secures their cover. It's almost eleven-thirty, and the earth is still lit in dusk, as if it's waiting for them to set foot on it before going dark.

Anya had religiously checked in every hour, giving Peggy more information as she got progressively sleepier and sleepier before falling asleep for good about an hour ago, and Peggy steps off the ramp with the nurses. "We're looking for a beat up, old black car," she tells them. "Likely parked under a good amount of trees, which doesn't narrow anything down a bit. Let's go, ladies."

They tromp through the woods, spreading out and calling for Anya, and for a horrible fifteen minutes Peggy thinks perhaps she'll never find them until a cry goes up from twenty yards to her left, from Nurse Barbara Martin: "I found them! Director! _I found them!"_

* * *

Anya is blinking and sleepy-eyed as the flashlights beam into the car windows. _No,_ she wants to protest as a lady comes up and opens the car door, letting in the cool night air. _Let me sleep._ She's so tired, but a pair of arms lifts her out and there's a lot of talking and hurrying and voices shouting as lights flash back and forth.

She peers up at the woman holding her: it's a nurse like they had at St. Lucia's in the infirmary. She knows that because she's wearing an apron over her clothes and she has on an armband with a red cross. "My name is Anya," she tells the woman, who carries her away from the car.

"Hello, Anya," says the nurse, smiling. "I'm Nurse Barbara. Are you hurt anywhere? How old are you?"

"No. I'm five," says Anya. "Is my papa going to be all right? Where are we going?"

"Back to the jet, and I'm not sure, but we will certainly do our best," says Nurse Barbara, hoisting her on her hip.

"Where's my aunt?" asks Anya anxiously, and remembers the radio in the car. "I left the radio—"

"Here we are," Barbara says, and hands her over to another woman. "She's not harmed at all. Director, I'll go back down and help get the men out—"

"Yes," says the woman holding Anya now, "please do, thank you, Barbara." Anya twists around and looks up into her face: the woman looks very tired, but she's pretty and wearing cosmetics, which is forbidden in the Red Room. Anya's never seen a woman wearing paint before. "Hello, Anya," she says warmly. "I'm your aunt Peggy. How do you do?"

"I'm very tired, how do you do?" Anya says automatically, and yawns.

"I'm sure you are. We have a bunk in the back of the plane for long rides. Would you like to sleep there?"

"I want to wait for Papa," Anya says. "Is he really your brother?"

"He certainly is," says Aunt Peggy, and she looks frightened, just a little. "I haven't seen him in a very long time, I'm afraid."

Anya wriggles out and down to the metal floor of the plane, then looks up at her aunt. "He's nice," she says. "I'm glad he's my papa."

Aunt Peggy's eyes are bright and she looks like she might be crying. "Will you stay with me, then, and hold my hand so I'm not afraid when they bring him up? I should very much like that."

"Yes," says Anya, and slips her hand into Aunt Peggy's, squeezing tightly. Her aunt squeezes her hand back, and Anya thinks that perhaps having an aunt might not be so bad. Maybe having an aunt is almost like having a mama. Her hand is still bloodstained, but Aunt Peggy doesn't seem to mind at all.

They're still standing there, hand in hand as two nurses carry her papa up the ramp on their canvas stretcher, and as another nurse with curly dark hair on her forehead helps Mr. James, who is covered in blood, and as Nurse Barbara helps Mr. Steven to walk up the ramp, the very last two people. Mr. Steven is very pale in the face, and he's sweating.

Aunt Peggy lets out a strangled sound and squeezes Anya's hand tight, and looks from Papa to Mr. Steven as if she doesn't know who to look at first. "Oh, God," she says. The big ramp closes, and one of the other nurses latches it shut before turning back to the men.

"He's stable," says Nurse Barbara. "He looks awful, but he's all right."

Aunt Peggy nods and turns to Papa, who's breathing very loudly, and kneels down, still holding Anya's hand. "Michael," she whispers, and her voice has gone all shaky and broken. "Can you hear me?"

Papa's eyes crack open, and he sees her. "Peg," he murmurs. "Hullo. I'm…so sorry it… took so long. Is Anya…?"

"I'm here, Papa," Anya says quickly, wriggling past Aunt Peggy to get closer to his face. "I said all the stories, just like you said. I told you about the Firebird and Prince Ivan and the twelve princesses who danced all night, and the wise girl, and the Gray Wolf—"

"And Vasilia the Beautiful," says Papa, and turns even whiter as a nurse cuts off his trousers, putting bandages on his hip. "Anya, _milaya_. You did well. Now…remember, what is your English name?"

"Anna," says Anya. "Anna Margaret Carter, Papa."

"Yes. That's your real name, now; not your old one. Her passport—Peggy, it's in my pocket. You'll need it. It's…all right." His hands flutter and shake like butterflies.

"You named her after me," Aunt Peggy says, and she really is crying now, holding onto Papa's hand and stroking his hair back. "Oh, Michael."

"Don't cry, Peg," he whispers. "I'll be all right. You…let the nurses do the worrying."

"Director," says the nurse with dark curly hair, "if you'd like to sit with Agent Johnson, I can look after Anya."

"Anna," corrects Anna, pouting. Hadn't the lady heard her papa? But the nurse only nods, as if realizing she's right, and comes over to sit with her as Aunt Peggy tears herself away to go look at Mr. Steven.

"You're right. My mistake." She sounds friendly and has an American accent, like Mr. Steven and Mr. James, and Anna looks up at her.

"What's up?" she asks, trying out her bold new American greeting, and the nurse laughs.

"Aren't you funny! Well, nothing much, only if you'd like to wash your hands, we have water in the back."

Anna can tell that the nurse is a nice sort of grownup: not like Matron Olga at all. "Yes, please," she says, and lets the lady clean her hands off with a wet cloth and some soap. "What's your name?"

"Beatrice Marie Anderson," says the nurse. "But everyone calls me Bea. And you're Anna Margaret Carter, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm five. How old are you?" Anna wipes her hands dry on a towel.

"Twenty-six," says Beatrice Marie Anderson, and turns her left hand over. "Hey, what's this on your wrist?"

Anna frowns. "That's just from the handcuffs," she explains, and can't understand why Beatrice looks at her funny. "You know, when you sleep, and they lock you to the bed so you can't get away. You _have_ to do it." She's had a mark there for a long time. She can't remember how long.

"Ah," says Bea, sounding surprised. "No, I didn't know. I've never done it. I think when people like the place they sleep in, they don't need to worry about running away, don't you think?"

"Oh. Yes, I guess so," says Anna dubiously. Her stomach growls, and Bea smiles at her, then pulls a case of food off a shelf and opens it.

"Let's see," she mutters, looking through the cans and jars. "Ah! Do you like pudding? I've got chocolate here, and a Pork and Rice C-ration. I'll eat it with you if you like."

"Oh, yes, please!" Anna says eagerly, forgetting the mark on her wrist, and they both dig in together.

* * *

Peggy holds a pair of forceps in one hand and a wad of cotton gauze in the other and waits with bated breath as Nurse Barbara pries Steve's shoulder wound open and shines a light into it.

Steve's completely out of it and looks bad. He's white as a sheet and can barely speak, his lips pale blue and sweat beading on his upper lip and forehead. She's not even sure he knows where he is. "Anything?" she asks tensely.

"Looks like some kind of toxin on whatever he was stabbed with," says Barbara. "Swab." Peggy hands her the gauze, and she swipes at the wound, then peers down at the gauze, stained with blood. "Yes—see, this yellowish-green stuff." She sniffs it and makes a face. "Agent Johnson, can you feel your lips?" Peggy can see a trail of saliva trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

"I don't think he can," she says, and Nurse Barbara picks up a small needle and pokes him gently in the bottom lip. There's no response from Steve, whose breathing is becoming progressively more labored.

"Cyanosis in the lips, paresthesia, sweating, incoordination—" she presses two fingers into Steve's throat. "Can you swallow for me, Johnson?" He doesn't, and she frowns. "Dysphagia, aphonia. I'm going to assume this is a neurotoxin, possibly some sort of tetrodotoxin. Based on the age of the wound, I'm shocked he's able to breathe."

"He's…his metabolism works very quickly, he was a test subject on some sort of super-soldier serum when he was a POW," says Peggy distantly, still holding the forceps.

"Oh. Well, he should be able to process it, then. If he makes it back to the Playground, he'll probably be all right." Barbara takes her exam gloves off and tosses them into a hazmat disposal bag.

"My brother," Peggy says, looking up and over toward the stretcher. They've cleared Finnish airspace and are streaking over England currently: what a bizarre sensation, to be above her home country with her brother again.

"GSW to the left hip and a fairly clean break of the left femur," says Nurse Betty Li, glancing up at Peggy. She's holding an oxygen mask over Michael's face. "I gave him morphine. He's stabilizing and he'll likely need an operation on that hip to save it."

"I'll radio in to the Playground and tell them to get the theater ready as soon as we arrive," says Peggy. "And Barnes?"

Nurse Carol Garcia looks up from her position by Bucky's prone form. "When you radio in, tell them we'll need a blood transfusion, too," she says, arms scarlet and sticky to the elbow as she presses down on Barnes' stomach. "What's his type?"

Peggy blanks. "I—I don't—"

"O," rasps Steve suddenly, forcing air past his paralyzed throat muscles. "Ppp…osss…"

"Type O positive," Peggy says quickly, and takes Steve by the hand. "You breathing all right?" He nods drunkenly and lies down with some difficulty on his side, taking short, labored breaths as blood trickles down his bare chest from the shoulder wound. "I'll go make the call. Be back in a tick. You rest."

She gets up and passes Anya—no, Anna, now—who's sleeping soundly in the bunk, watched over by Nurse Bea, and climbs into the cockpit. "Need to radio into the Playground," she tells Howard, slipping into the copilot's seat and adjusting the headphones and microphone onto her head properly. She taps into the frequency and waits until Phillips answers, gruff and steady as a rock on the other end.

" _Channel secure. Proceed with report."_

"All subjects extracted. Requesting medical personnel to be on site and prepared to operate on possibly two men, blood transfusion for O positive—Barnes has sustained a nasty shot to the gut."

" _What's wrong with your brother?"_

"Shattered hip from a gunshot wound and a broken femur. Same leg." Peggy grips the headset. "There's been a bit of a complication as well."

" _Complication?"_

"Yes. I—Michael—that is, I unexpectedly find myself possessing a niece. Her name is Anna and she's about five."

" _She hurt?"_

"No, just in a bit of shock, I think. She's sleeping. Nurse Bea spotted a few things that tell me she may have been in the Red Room, and I've had experience working with—well, anyway. She got out early. I hope it won't have an effect on her." Peggy bites her lip, thinking of the little girl who had stabbed Dugan; of Dottie Underwood who locked herself to her own bed at twenty-five years old.

" _Well, SHIELD isn't a nursery school. We can question her, but we can't hold her here after we're done."_

"No," says Peggy, slightly numb. "No, of course not. She'll—we'll cross that when we come to it."

" _Good. How's Rogers?"_

"Poisoned with some sort of neurotoxin. He ought to be recovered at least by the time we land. If he was an ordinary man he'd be dead." Peggy fights to banish the thought. "Howard can check back in when we're over the States."

" _Copy that. See you soon._ " The line crackles and goes out, and Peggy sits for a moment, gathering her strength, then takes the headset off, hanging it back up on its hook.

Howard gives her a bleary-eyed look as she stands. "Bring coffee," he requests. "I'll get us back in record time, but God, I need caffeine."

"You'll get it," she promises, slipping back out. "Just don't spill it on the floor, or you'll never let me hear the end of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try my best to keep regular updates going. We lost two of the foster kittens and then I got a call back from a job I had applied for all in the same twelve hour period and I'm so burned out trying to make sure the last kitten is okay. <3


	18. September 10, 1950

An orchestra: trumpet, drum, gentle piano. The sound is muffled, soft as butter through the speakers of a record player as the lyrics trill out, drifting across the air.

" _Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again; it's been a long, long, time…"_

The music plays on, a tender soundtrack to whatever's happening that Steve can't see past the cover of his eyelids. It's dark in here, and warm: he knows the song like the back of his hand, and he takes in a breath, choking on the tube down his throat as his muscle contracts around it.

"Easy," says a voice, and he recognizes Nurse Carol, warm and low as her hands move across his face. Two fingers press at his larynx, and he chokes again, struggling to control the impulse to vomit. "Move your muscles for me?" He does, and she carefully extubates him while he gags and coughs, sitting up and struggling to breathe.

"What—what happened?" he rasps. There's a bandage on his bare shoulder, and another above his eye. Both wounds aren't really giving him pain, but he can certainly feel that they're there. He can't see a thing: has he gone blind? His fear is alleviated as the nurse lifts a moist cotton pad off his eyes and sprays him in the face with a saline solution, and he blinks instinctively.

"Director Carter was right. Fastest healing I ever did see," says Carol, setting the spray aside and getting out an oxygen mask. "Here." She puts it over his face, and he breathes deeply. "It's been about a day since you got back. Agent Barnes is recovering, Mr. Carter just got out of surgery, and the little girl is having the time of her life telling Nurse Bea anything and everything about the Red Room."

"And—Director Carter?" Steve says hoarsely. He knows she was with him on the plane, he remembers her stricken, pale face as he swayed on the bench, trying to speak with a tongue and lips that wouldn't work.

For answer, Nurse Carol Garcia points to the other side of the room. Steve follows her finger, and sees Peggy, curled up asleep with one leg stretched out in front of her in the chair. There's a record player she must have lugged in from someone's office set up next to her seat, and the familiar sounds of Harry James and His Orchestra are fading as the song comes to an end, then falls away into scratching as the needle runs off the record. She's still in her field gear, boots and all.

"She didn't want to disturb you," explains Carol. "But she didn't want to leave you alone either."

"I appreciate that," Steve whispers, trying to keep his emotions under control.

"You were in a bad state by the time they got you here. Couldn't breathe real well on your own, so she insisted on intubation and oxygen. You couldn't blink on your own, either." Carol lifts the mask and checks his face, then looks down at his hands to check for cyanosis. "You look fine to me now. Color's good. Well, you rest up, and I'll check on you again in a little bit."

"Thanks," he says, eyes still fixed on Peggy as the nurse ducks out past the curtain.

It seems eons, but it's really not more than a few minutes before she wakes up, looking at the silent record player. She reaches out a hand to reset the record, and looks over at Steve, likely out of habit because her eyes go wide and she does a double-take. "Oh, God," she mutters, jerking forward and grasping for his hand. "You're awake."

"Sorry," he says, and coughs again, wincing. His throat is raw and sore.

"For God's sake, if you're really going to apologize for nearly dying, I might just kill you myself," she tells him sharply. "How in the name of all that's holy did you get poisoned with neurotoxins? All we could get out of Anya was that someone named Natalia was fighting you."

Steve swallows. "Stabbed," he manages. God, did they punish her for failing? Will she be wiped? Will she remember meeting him at all? "She stabbed me, I mean. Poison was on the blade."

"That's what Nurse Barbara thought. I'm glad you weren't killed," Peggy says, voice shaking.

"You're playing the song," he says gently. "Thought you hated it."

She takes a breath and sits back down, scooting the chair close enough so that she can rest her elbows on the bed. "Somehow, it was easier to manage knowing that it might get through to you," she says, and there are tears in her reddened eyes. "God, Steve. You were blue in the face and you weren't breathing."

"I'm okay," he assures her, shifting his weight to take her hand in his. "Hey. I'm here. I'm all right. We're all okay."

She sniffs wetly, but pats him on the hand and blows her nose into a hanky before continuing on. "And now I've got the bloody CIA banging on the door, so to speak, demanding to know why the MGB is threatening us over a _kidnapping_ : Anna hasn't been kidnapped, she's a British citizen by law, since she was born to a British national—"

"Wait, the MGB—" Steve sits straight up, startling Peggy. "Peggy. Michael told me something during the mission, after he'd been shot, and I don't think he thought he was going to make it, which is why he told me."

"What?" Peggy frowns. "What is it?"

He struggles to get the words past his raw throat. "Hydra. Hydra's in the MGB, in the CIA, everywhere."

Her face blanches. "That's impossible—"

"It's not. You remember Operation Paperclip?" Steve coughs. "How many of those scientists d'you think had loyalties to Hydra? On both sides? Soviets, America, it doesn't matter. They could be engineering the whole war, for all we know."

"Christ Almighty," says Peggy, stricken. "I've got to tell Phillips. We'll—we'll do a full background inspection of every single person working for SHIELD, and snuff out the ones in the CIA if we have to."

"Good," says Steve, exhausted. He lies back down. "Oh, hey, before I forget, one more thing," he adds, trying to be casual as Peggy stands.

"Yes?" she asks.

"We oughta get married," he says, blinking at her.

Steve's extremely gratified as she blushes from throat to hair and makes a shocked sound, stuck in her tracks. "You—you—"

"Or, you know, you could come here and give me a kiss," he offers, half-smiling. "I missed you."

Peggy chokes slightly and brings herself to an about-face. "I don't—have the— _oh_ , you're impossible," she splutters, and marches over, leaning down and pressing her mouth to his with _quite_ a bit more ferocity than Steve had expected. Her teeth nip into his lip, and her tongue presses against his: it's sloppy and heated and she tastes like old coffee but Steve doesn't care.

He reaches up to take her by the shoulder automatically, only to be halted by the needle in the back of his hand feeding him fluids. "Ow, goddammit," he mutters, breaking the kiss.

She laughs, slightly breathless. "I'll be back," she promises. "You stay put."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve says, watching her go.

* * *

Two weeks later, Phillips knocks on the door of Michael Carter's private room and steps inside with a folder, looking as if he's aged ten years in as many days. "Sorry to interrupt," he says gruffly, looking at the assembled crowd: Peggy, sitting with Anna on her lap: Barnes, nearly fully recovered and pretending to read a book as he keeps an eye on the door; Steve Rogers, legs crossed at the knee as he plays checkers with Carter, who's propped up in bed with a hospital gown on, looking pale and determined despite the enormous cast that covers his right leg from hip to ankle.

"Go on," says Peggy, looking up.

"I don't have to tell you that this Hydra business was messy," he says shortly. "Every federal institution within a forty mile radius is embarking on a new employment process, and there's about to be a very large hearing on Capitol Hill I'm not looking forward to attending. The President's absolutely furious that the integrity of America's intelligence services has been compromised, and he's even madder that it's in the middle of a war."

"Surely not _all_ of them," says Carter, horrified.

"Yes, all of them. We even had a mole in SHIELD, like you suspected, and he was Hydra," says Phillips. "We were all looking in the wrong places. Anyway, the Soviets are now demanding the return of their Asset, of Anna, who they're claiming has been trafficked across the border, and of Carter, who was apparently of great help to them in their Red Room program. The American embassy in Finland is a disaster right now."

"I hope you told them to stuff it," says Peggy angrily.

Phillips snorts. "Of course I did. We have reason to believe, however, that all of you in this room are high-profile targets of the USSR and will be treated as such by any agents of espionage in the States."

"So what do we do?" asks Bucky, shutting his book.

"Witness protection," says Phillips heavily. "New identities, new life. All of you."

"You can't mean—" Peggy begins, white-faced.

"Yes, I do mean you too, Director, so don't try to wiggle out of this one."

"But we already have SHIELD's protection," protests Steve. "There's no reason Director Carter has to quit her job—"

"There's a very big reason Director Carter has to quit her job," says Phillips tersely, "and it begins with an M and ends in a GB. All our resources are concentrated on the war that's going on right now in Korea, which is likely swarming with Hydra agents on both sides. Now, once that's over, or once we win this Cold War, there's a possibility that we can talk about easing everyone back in.  But right now, no. I'm not going to risk Carter being shot in the back of the head on her daily commute by one of these Black Widow gals because she likes her job."

"Yes, sir," says Peggy, pale and resigned. "Shall I—tender my resignation, or—?"

"What? You're just giving up like that?" Steve stares at her.

"Yes, I am," she says, and looks at him with unfathomable emotion in her eyes. "Steve, don’t you see? We beat Hydra. We did it. The war's finally over. We can go home."

Memory hits him, wraps around him for a moment, as impactful and all-encompassing as a car wrapping around a tree. A vision, a vision he did not ask for: a dance hall, Peggy ghostlike in blue, _we can go home; imagine it._

He must look shaken, because Michael gives him an odd look and Phillips keeps talking, looking down at the file he's carrying. "We've also gotten some intelligence that this—this program you heard this Romanoff woman mentioning, _sverkhchelovec_ —it's a pale imitation of Erskine's formula. They're trying to make superhumans, but it appears the only effects are extremely slowed aging and heightened agility, speed, senses. They're not quite up to par, but still enough to take down an ordinary man."

 _That's how_. Steve's shaken to his core: Natasha Romanoff was _always_ enhanced, always… _more_ than everyone else—but then, he'd known that anyway, _sverkhchelovec_ or no. "I don't suppose we can do anything about that."

"Not at the moment, no. Oh, and Barnes?"

"Sir?" Bucky looks up, shifting his weight slightly.

For the first time, Phillips looks remorseful. "We're going to need to take the arm. I'm sorry, son."

"You are _not_ taking his—" Steve begins, indignant, but Bucky raises his flesh-and-blood hand, silencing him.

"No, I get it," he says. "Hydra, the MGB, the Soviets—they want me _with_ the arm, not without it. Without it I'm just…like other people. I can't punch through steel. The Winter Soldier is a stone cold killer with a metal arm. Bucky Barnes…Bucky Barnes is just a washed-up POW."

"You're not a washed-up anything," Michael says firmly. "You're a brick, with one arm or with two."

Bucky snorts. "Your leg and my arm. Between us we could be a whole VA hospital."

"Is it going to hurt?" Anna pipes up in an anxious voice.

"Maybe a little," says Bucky. "I don't even know how it goes on."

"Can I go with you?" she asks.

"I don't think that would be wise," says Michael, "but we can see him after, if you like."

"Okay," Anna says, chewing on her bottom lip.

Peggy looks over at Steve, and though neither of them speak, something unspoken passes between the two of them: an understanding, an acceptance. "Bucky, if you'd like to temporarily stay in the apartment while you find another place, that's fine," Steve says.

"Why, you got somewhere else to live?" Bucky teases.

"As a matter of fact, he does," says Peggy, looking back at Phillips as if to say _don't you dare say a word._ "We're getting married. He'll be living with me, wherever we go and whatever our new names are. I think we've both earned some rest."

"Well," says Phillips, trying not to beam from ear to ear, "that's the best news I've heard all day. Congratulations."

"Can I come to the wedding?" Anna asks instantly, eyes starry.

Peggy laughs. "Gracious, it won't be all that much: just a courthouse wedding is all I was thinking of—"

"What, and deny me the chance to give you away?" Michael asks, grinning. "Come on, Peg. Don't be a wet blanket."

"If we're going into protection, it's got to be low-key," Steve protests, his gut feeling as if it's unraveling at the idea of _actually getting married._ "Courthouse wedding, and a private party after, maybe."

"Courthouse wedding under your new names," amends Phillips, and hands them both two thick manila envelopes. "Grant S. Rogers and Elizabeth M. Spratt, welcome to your new identities."

Peggy opens hers and sees it all: the passport, the birth certificate, the packet of cash; the driver's license, the Social Security card. "I'm not even going to ask how much money is in here," she says primly.

"Enough to get you by," is all Phillips says. Steve opens his envelope and goes a peculiar shade of rose.

"Phillips…this is _fifty thousand dollars_ ," he says, sounding strangled.

"Consider it a thank-you note from the American government and a wedding present. To both of you." Phillips clears his throat and gives Peggy a look.

"You're not telling me there's another fifty thousand dollars in _my_ envelope," says Peggy, stricken. "You must be mad."

"Am I? You open it and let me know." Phillips turns back to Bucky. "Barnes, you're to report in the morning to the lab. Ten AM. Carter—no, not you, Peggy, your brother—you'll be staying here until you're fully healed, after which you and your daughter will be put into a safehouse in a nice boring suburb in Virginia so a security detail can keep an eye on you."

"How long?" asks Anna, worried. "I hate safehouses. They're always cold and dirty."

"Darling, you mustn't think this will be anything like the ones you're used to," says Peggy firmly, patting her braids. "This will be a perfectly lovely American home with a front garden and a back one, and you'll have your very own room and go to school and have summers off to do whatever you like."

"Oh," says Anna. "That's not so bad." The door cracks open and Nurse Barbara pokes her head in, blond and smiling.

"No, it isn't," Peggy tells her. "Now, it's almost noon, so why don't you go with Nurse Barbara down to eat lunch?"

"Is there chocolate pudding?" demands Anna, excited as she slides off Peggy's lap.

"There sure is." Barbara winks at her. "And animal crackers, and sandwiches."  They'd been loath to let the girl out of their sight at first, especially with the knowledge that Hydra had been infiltrating SHIELD, but the nurses had banded together and taken it upon themselves to escort Anna to her therapy sessions, to lunch, to questioning, to the restroom, and outside: always flanked by two other agents. Both Peggy and Michael felt more at ease knowing that Anna was likely the most well-protected Carter out of all of them.

Anna circles around the room saying goodbye to everyone personally before she exits: it's a particular habit she's picked up and stuck to. The resident psychiatrist has told Peggy that she might exhibit compulsive type behaviors as a result of the early patterns established, but that there is no reason why she ought not to break the habit as she grows older. "Bye, Mr. Steven," she chirps, hugging Steve. "Bye, Papa." She kisses her father on the cheek. "Bye, Aunt Peggy." She hugs Peggy, then shuffles over shyly to Bucky. "Bye, Mr. James."

He dutifully picks her up for a hug, but she kisses him on the cheek and wraps her arms around his neck tight. "Don't be afraid of tomorrow," she whispers.

Bucky hugs her back, patting her gently. "Just a little bit," he whispers back. "Don't worry about me."

* * *

That night, Nurse Bea knocks on Bucky's door (they've all been put up in small rooms, similar to dormitories, that are normally used when agents need to catch shut-eye between missions: Steve and Bucky share one and Peggy prefers to sleep on the sofa in her office) and when he calls out, "Come in," she enters, bringing Anna, who's clutching her hand in one chubby fist and holding a stuffed toy of some kind in the other.

"Hiya, kid," he says, swinging his legs off his cot. He's been trying to read a book, but the words won't stick to his brain: he's been reading the same paragraph over and over for thirty minutes. "Steve's out at the moment. What's up?"

"Hiya," she echoes, looking up at Bea. Bea gives Bucky a smile.

"Anna wanted to give you something very important. Is that all right?"

"Sure," says Bucky, leaning forward, "bring it over."

Anna hurries over and thrusts the toy into his hands: it's a little stuffed cat with blue glass eyes and black velvet fur. "This is my _kotenik_ ," she tells him very seriously. "He sleeps with me so I'm not afraid in America. So he can stay with you, so you're not afraid tomorrow."

Tears blur Bucky's eyesight, and he manages to smile at her. "Hey, thanks," he croaks, and lifts the stuffed kitten, making its nose bump hers. She giggles. "I think he might miss you, though, so I'll give him right back as soon as I'm done."

"Okay," Anna says, beaming. She leans down and kisses the cat's head before skipping back to Bea. "See you tomorrow, Mr. James."

"See you," he replies, nodding at Bea as she takes the girl out, and lies back on the cot, legs stretched out as he stares at the stuffed cat. Hadn't he had a stuffed dog when he was about five? He can't remember what happened to it. It's ridiculous, a grown man sleeping with a stuffed cat, but he doesn't mind the little thing, solid and tucked into his arm.

He might as well keep it. Just for tonight.

* * *

Steve is indeed _out_ at the moment, but he's also _in_ : in someone else's sleeping quarters, that is.

"Oh, God," he moans, flat on his back on Peggy's couch in her office. It's past nine, and the blinds are drawn and the doors locked: nobody's going to find them here, and if anyone suspects, nobody's going to go running to Phillips. It's the strangest sensation: he's gone from feeling like a high-schooler sneaking around with his sweetheart to being _validated_ in what he wants for once in his life, and so is Peggy.

She lifts her head from his bare chest, red-lipped and eyes shining. "Sensitive there, are we?" There's no space left between her words for a reply; Peggy leans back down and presses another open-mouthed kiss to his left breast, straddling his lap.

 _Sensitive_ doesn't begin to cover it. His skin feels like it's too small, every kiss she peppers his chest with feels like a stab of heat streaking from nipple to groin. He gave up trying to hide his erection a few minutes ago, and now he's just _enduring_ , at her mercy, on his back and trembling as she litters his skin with bright red marks. "You're gonna kill me," he pants, when he can find words again.

"Do you know," she remarks, hovering just above his shoulder, "you don't even scar? Entirely unfair." Peggy hasn't removed a single article of clothing except for her shoes, but she might as well be nude for how much he wants her. She shifts her weight slightly to move back, and the movement brings her inner thigh to press against his dick.

Steve chokes and thrusts his hips up on pure instinct, trying not to come in his pants but seeking more pressure and heat anyway. " _God_ —" His voice cracks, and he grips her by the waist.

"Oh," she gasps, flushing in arousal and embarrassment. "I'm sorry—"

"Please," he begs, gripping at her shirt. "I just— _please_ —"

Peggy turns scarlet as she leans back slightly, experimentally pressing her weight on his groin as she unbuttons the throat of her shirt, fingers fumbling all the way down as Steve digs his fingers into her thighs and trembles, eyes fixed on her chest as she throws the shirt aside and takes off her brassiere.

He has to shut his eyes to collect himself as her breasts come into view, heavy and firm and tipped with pale pink nipples. _Don't come in your pants. Don't come in your pants._

"Steve," she says gently, and strokes his hair with her fingers. The sensation sends shudders down his spine, and he fights to open his eyes again, focusing on her face. "You all right?"

"It's—it's a lot," he stutters, hands shaking.

She leans back slightly, hands coming up to cover her chest. "We can stop, if you like."

"Just—" Steve takes a deep breath. "God. I don't know if I'm gonna make it on the wedding night."

Peggy laughs, blushing. "I couldn't say. Surely you've had more experience than me in that regard."

He gulps. Here it comes. "Uh, no. Not… yet, really."

She blinks, eyebrows raised, and a smile spreads across her face. "Steven Grant Rogers, do you mean to tell me you're a one-hundred and six year old virgin?"

"Shut up," he mumbles, twisting over to tuck his face into the couch cushions. She tugs at his shoulder and drags him back to lie flat again, grinning. "It's not like I had a lot of _time_ —"

"No, no!" Peggy pats at him. "No, I'm not having a go at you—I think it's very admirable—"

"I have—I have done kissing," he manages to blurt out, his face hot. "With, uh. Girls. Women, I mean."

"Yes," she says knowingly, "I seem to remember a certain Private Lorraine—"

"Oh, God," he moans, covering his eyes with both hands.

"It's all _right_ ," she insists again, stroking his hair. "At least we'll both be on the same page."

"You haven't—" Steve peers up at her between his fingers. "Really?"

Peggy snorts. "Of course not. I've been far too busy. First the SOE, then the SSR, now SHIELD—"

"Michael said you were engaged back in 1940," he says. "To a, uh, Fred someone."

"Oh, Fred Wells," says Peggy, sitting back on Steve's thighs and groaning. "A milquetoast idiot; whatever was I thinking? Lord, I haven't thought about him in years."

"But you didn't…I mean, you and he never—" Steve's throat feels like it's half closed up: this is probably the most intimate conversation they've ever had and Peggy's breasts are still bare above him, tantalizingly out of reach.

"Gracious, no," says Peggy. "I considered myself quite the proper young lady back then, and proper young ladies didn't participate in certain activities before a ring was on a finger." She rests her hands on Steve's stomach, and he fights to control his lower circulatory system. "Now, depending on the young lady and depending on whether the ring was an engagement ring or a wedding ring, results may vary: I personally decided that a wedding ring would be my threshold, and so I behaved—and will _still_ behave, mind you, accordingly."

Steve grins. "Well, nobody could ever accuse you of not having spectacular self-control," he teases, and she flushes, crossing her arms over her naked chest. "I should probably buy you an engagement ring, shouldn't I?"

"I think it's a ridiculous expense, actually," she says. "A wedding band will suffice. And I'm not going to get myself a great big gown, either: I've had quite enough of frills and nonsense."

"You'll look beautiful in anything you wear," he tells her, rubbing his thumbs over her thighs. "A potato sack. Anything."

Peggy smiles. "Flatterer." She takes her hands off her breasts anyway, and reaches for his, pulling his palms up to cup both of her breasts. "Your turn."

Steve pulls her down atop him, grinning into her chest as she squeaks in delighted protest. She's solid and warm and firm and soft all at once, and he can't get enough of her body: bare above the waist, skin pebbling in the cool air. "Can I—" A thought occurs to him, intriguing and titillating as he kisses his way across her tits. "Do you, uh. Have you—besides, you know, the, uh, usual act, which I know you haven't done, because you just said you haven't—"

"What on earth are you trying to ask me?" Peggy asks, amused and pulling away.

"I—I—" He can't quite force himself to say it. "Do you want—I mean—there's—there's an act I can perform on you that, uh, you might like. You might not, but that's—that's okay."

"And what," asks Peggy, eyebrow raised, "does this act involve, precisely?"

"Forget it," Steve says, after a moment. "Just—I can't say it. Forget it."

"No," she insists, tucking her fingers under his chin and making him look at her. "No, you were dying to say it: go on."

Steve wishes the floor would swallow him. "It doesn't involve, uh, my—my—"

"Your, erm. Your…roger?" Peggy's scarlet too, now, to match him.

Steve nods. "Yeah. That. It just…it…my—my hands, and your—your—" His eyes trail down to the front of her trousers.

"Oh," says Peggy, in a very different sort of voice. "Your hands, really? I hardly think you'd enjoy that much—"

"No," says Steve quickly, "not in the way I might enjoy, uh, other things, but—but you might like it. And I—I want you to like it."

"Well—" Peggy's very red-cheeked, but looks intrigued. "I—I'll shuck these off, then, and—and let you get to it." She slips off him and quickly takes down her trousers, but he stops her as she's got her thumbs inside her briefs.

"Leave those on for now," Steve says, and pats the couch. "Just—just sit here, on the edge."

"Right," she says, and sits, naked except for her underpants. It's a very odd feeling. "I'm afraid I'm going to get a bit cold—"

"You can put a shirt back on, if you want to," he says, and she grabs for his, discarded over the back of the sofa, and puts it on without buttoning it, then waits, eyes wide and hands slightly shaky as Steve comes around back of her, settling her snugly between his massive thighs and settles his hands on her waist. "I'm not—I'm not gonna do anything you don't want me to do," he tells her.

"Good. I—oh," she murmurs, as his mouth comes down on her neck, warm and soft, seeking her skin beneath the shirt as he peels back the fabric. "That's—that's quite nice."

"Good," he echoes, and keeps kissing her neck, her shoulder, her throat, slowly, over and over until her legs have spread apart of her own free will and she's flushed and her teeth are digging into her own lip. "Good. Okay." Steve presses a gentle kiss to her shoulder, his right hand slipping between her legs as he pinches at her right nipple lightly, and Peggy lets out a startled moan, her thighs coming together and squeezing his other hand. "Easy," he whispers, lifting his mouth and using his left hand to stroke at her hips, pet her thighs. "Okay. I'm just gonna use my finger, like this." He uses his thumb to rub gentle circles around the front of her briefs. She's warmed up plenty by now, her body heat surrounding him, and Steve carefully presses his fingers into the damp patch there.

She keeps her body hair trimmed and neat: coarse, glossy dark curls mat down across the front, just visible under the smooth fabric. "I'm—it's—a bit messy, don't you think? And—the smell—does it—" Peggy sounds as if she's embarrassed, shaky and nervous, but Steve shakes his head.

"You're fine," he assures her, and presses a kiss to her neck again, moving his hands up slowly. "Much better-smelling than my pants after a long day, let me tell you." She laughs, and stifles it with a moan as his fingers drift across her front, not quite close enough to touch, then rub gentle movements into her inner thigh. "You're soft, here," he whispers, and she shivers.

"Oh—go on, then, _please_ , I—"

Steve obliges and presses his face to her neck, rubbing at her front with slow, gentle strokes and pressing down gently once he finds her clitoris: a swollen nub at the top, near the seam of her briefs, hiding under the curls. Peggy shrieks and claps a hand over her mouth, the other one burying itself in his hair as she twists in his arms to seize him. "Easy," he whispers.

" _Steve_ —"

Up and down, across, back and forth. It takes some time, but she shudders and moans, "Yes, _yes_ , like that—" and after that, he keeps doing exactly what he's doing, at precisely the rate he's doing it. Peggy chokes and strains and her thighs go tense and tight around his hand until she lets out a cry and he feels her trembling out her release, and he doesn't stop moving until her legs go limp and she falls away.

Steve moves his hand up her body, resting it on her belly, and sees that she's flushed, breathing hard, and limp across his shoulder, her lips parted and her eyes shining and bleary. "God," she murmurs.

"I guess I did it right, then," he says, proud in spite of himself. "You okay?"

"Phenomenal, thank you." There's a fine sheen of sweat across her collarbones and her cheeks, his shirt has slipped off her shoulder, and her hair is clinging to her forehead. "I…I expect you to do that again at some point." Her eyes drift shut.

"Sure will." Steve's so hard it's almost painful, but he doesn't care. "I'll just… I'll go and let you sleep."

"Right," she says, rousing and pushing herself up. "Your shirt—"

"You keep it," he tells her, picking up his T-shirt and shrugging it back on over his head.

"Wait, but you didn't—" Her eyes flicker down to his groin.

"I'll take care of it," Steve says. "Don't worry about me."

She looks as if she might argue, but averts her eyes and pulls her underwear back on. "They're moving out all my things from the house tonight and packing them in storage."

"Do we get to pick a house?" he asks, slipping his shoes back on.

She reclines on the sofa, propping her head up on one hand. "We can pick specifications, but it'll be whatever SHIELD can find for us. Why, did you have something particular in mind?"

"Three bedrooms," he says immediately. "Enough space in the backyard for kids to run around in, and in the front yard, too. A front porch, for sitting on in the evening. A big shade tree."

"Aren't you a romantic," she says, smiling. "Children, then?"

"If you want them, yeah," he says shyly, looking at her through his eyelashes. "I mean—we never really talked about that—"

"I—I think I might like children," she tells him. "One, of course, to start with."

"Well, they don't generally come in a litter," Steve says very seriously, and grins when she rolls her eyes. "Got a date in mind for our appointment at City Hall?"

"I do," she tells him, stretching luxuriously. "I've already called and scheduled an appointment for October the first at ten in the morning: all you need to do is show up, and don't—don't be late."

"Never," he promises, and kneels down by her head, giving her a long kiss, which she reciprocates enthusiastically, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'll show up in a nice suit and everything."

"And afterward," she says, tears in her eyes, "I want my dance. It's been a long enough wait."

"You'll get it." Steve kisses her again on the forehead and stands up as her arms fall away. "I'll see you in the morning after Bucky gets his arm off. He asked me to stick around."

"See you then," she says, pulling the blanket up to her chin as he quietly steps out.

* * *

"Well, well, well," says Bucky in his low, drawn-out drawl as Steve slips back into their room without his shirt. "Where have _you_ been?" The glint in his eyes says that he knows exactly where Steve's been and what he's been doing.

"Shut up," says Steve good-naturedly, blushing as he edges into the bathroom they both share. He'd never been able to hide anything from Bucky.

"Hope you told Peggy I said hi," Bucky tells him, grinning.

Steve grins back through the door. "Sorry, pal. The thought never crossed my mind. I was busy."

Bucky throws his head back and lets out a peal of laughter.  "Jesus, Stevie. When did _you_ turn into Cary Grant?"

"I haven't," he protests, washing his hands and face for the night. "And for your information we didn't do anything, uh, untoward, exactly."

"Oh, _really_ ," says Bucky. "Where's your shirt?"

"She stole it," Steve replies, completely straight-faced. "Hey, do you wanna be my best man? Wedding's scheduled for Saturday. I bet someone could find you a suit."

"Now there's something I thought I'd never hear you ask," says Bucky. "Sure I will. And hey, as your best man, I get to take it upon myself to inform you as to the intricacies of the marriage bed—"

Steve cuts him off, choking. "Oh, for the love of God, Bucky—"

"What?" The other man stifles a wide smile. "I'm just trying to help—"

"I don't need your help—"

"You don't know how to do it—"

"I _know_ how to do it," Steve insists, feeling like an awkward eighteen-year-old again.

"How many women have you slept with?" Bucky asks, raising an eyebrow.

Steve can feel heat rising up his face. "None of your business, that's how many."

Bucky's undeterred. "So, zero. How many have I slept with? Four. I think. If my memory serves me right and isn't—"

"Five," Steve corrects him, "you're always forgetting that night you brought home that secretary, Dot, and messed around our apartment before I woke up and she got mad and thought I was your kid brother."

"Oh, right," says Bucky. "Five, then, and two of 'em were first-timers." He gives Steve a speculative look as Steve drops onto his bed and yanks his shoes off. "Dunno if that's the kind of advice you need."

"Oh, all right," Steve relents. He's worried, if he's being honest with himself; worried about hurting her, worried about losing his control, worried about almost everything to do with marriage.

"Okay." Bucky swings his legs off the bed and leans forward. "When you're with a girl and it's her first time, you want to go real slow. Get her warmed up."

"I know _that_ ," Steve mutters.

Bucky continues on as if he hadn't heard, gesturing with both hands. "Once she's warmed up, and I mean, _warmed up_ —you want her to be good and ready everywhere—you go for it, but slowly. Real slowly. If she's hurting, you gotta stop."

"What if, uh—" Steve's never spoken about this to anyone but Peggy, really. "I'm, uh. The serum—it made me pretty sensitive. I—I don't want to blow early, if you catch my drift. I'm not sure if that's going to be a problem or not, actually, because of the—the increased endurance, but—I don't—it also—god," he groans, burying his face in his hands. "I, uh. I'm afraid I might hurt her."

Bucky's eyes widen. "I'll be damned. I thought it was just me. You too?"

"Yeah!" Steve exhales in relief. "Every time she kisses me I feel like I want to crawl out of my damn skin. Nobody mentioned _that_ as a side effect."

"I mean, I haven't exactly, uh, been intimate with anyone for a while," Bucky says, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

Steve wants to kick himself. "Oh. No, I mean—you get the idea, though."

"Yeah, yeah. Well, for the first issue, maybe, uh, try—try—when you're—uh, having alone time—" Now Bucky looks as embarrassed as Steve feels. "Just, uh, don't—don't finish for a while. Cut it off and restart when you're almost there, if you know what I—"

"I know what you mean," Steve says hurriedly.

"It just—it seemed to kinda numb everything for a real short time, so—"

"How short?"

"Uh. For me, about…ten minutes. It gets easier every restart, so to speak. And then afterward it's not too bad. But you might be different." Bucky squints at him. "I'd just—try different things, I guess."

"Are you—" Steve can barely ask the question, but it's not like Nurse Anderson can ask this one. "Are you, uh, lonely? I mean—not lonely, you have us, but I mean—in terms of, you know, lady friends. Do you—I mean—"

Bucky leans back, averting his eyes. "If I'm being entirely honest," he mutters, "I—I don't think my equipment works like it used to."

"How so?" Steve asks, concerned.

"Just—" He shifts his weight. "Don't go running to my shrink or to Bea with this, okay?"

"No, no," says Steve. "We used to live together, for Pete's sake. You can tell me."

Bucky sighs. "It's—sometimes I go days without any—any drive at all, like, I'm talking up to a month or two without being able to get a hard-on. And then other times—" He clears his throat, cheeks red. "Other times I get—I get so hard I can barely think, and I don't know why, and I can't—I can't really finish, even though everything's so goddamn sensitive, and the only thing that works is cold water, and I can't—I can't fuckin' _stand_ cold water." His flesh-and-blood hand trembles for a moment, until he clenches it into a fist to stop it.

"So that stuff about holding off—"

"I did all that back in '44," he says, finally making eye contact. "Between when you dragged me out of Zola's lab and when I fell. It wasn't like we had time for anything else."

They're both quiet for a minute. "Wish I knew what to say to help," says Steve. "Maybe—maybe it'll fix itself."

"I hope so," says Bucky, rolling over abruptly and turning out the light. "Because I don't intend to live out my days as a damn monk."

* * *

Morning rolls around, and James Buchanan Barnes is signed into the lab for his procedure at exactly 1000 hours. He climbs up on a reclining chair, something like a dentist's seat, and lets Nurse Garcia strap his metal arm out onto a board, then waits patiently as Steve removes the painted star from his arm.

After that, Steve sits by his side, holding his right hand as Stark lays out his tools and an anesthesiologist holds a mask over his nose, gently sedating him and watching as his blood pressure drops on the monitor he's plugged into. He can see Peggy watching through the glass window that separates the lab from the hallway, looking pale and nervous. Tucked into Bucky's right side is a small black stuffed cat, and Carol Garcia, as businesslike as ever, waits with a tray of tools.

"All right," says Howard, putting on a pair of protective goggles. "We have no idea what the arm is capable of doing, so let's go slowly and carefully. Steve, you want to—"

"I'm fine right here," says Steve.

Howard shrugs and sits down on Barnes' other side, examining the arm. "Looks like it's composed of three main pieces, shoulder socket connected into some kind of...implant," he mutters, almost to himself. "Okay." He pries into the plates that connect at the top of Barnes' shoulder gently, and begins the slow and arduous process of removing the plates. "This is going to be a bit touch and go," he tells Steve.

It takes a very long time. Stark ties a handkerchief around his forehead to stop sweat from dripping into Bucky's open shoulder socket, even though it's lined with neural relay implants, and finally takes the majority of the arm off at 1110 hours, leaving an empty, gaping hole in its place. "I don't know if he'll be able to feel this," he mutters, looking at the neural relays under a bright light. "This is beyond any tech I've ever seen." Experimentally, he touches one of the relays with a swab.

Bucky's eyes fly open. " _No_ ," he moans under the mask, and tries to sit up.

"Shit," says Howard, cringing away.

"Bucky," says Steve, pressing down on his chest. "It's okay. It's—"

"Hurts," Bucky whimpers, and his anesthesia-glassy eyes find Steve's. "Stevie?"

Steve cups his cheek in his palm. "Yeah, pal, it's me. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you. You lay back down for me, okay?"

"Please—it _hurts_ —" On the monitor, his blood pressure begins to rise, his pulse quickening.

"Stark," says Steve, glaring at him, "we need to plug those relays into something and get them un-exposed or he's going to go into shock."

"Hold on, hold on," says Howard, scrambling around on the worktable. "I have just the thing—" He grabs the disembodied metal arm and a buzz saw, then chops it apart just past the shoulder, shredding the ends of the metal as sparks fly. "I can't design a damn artificial neuron, but I can sure as hell work with what I've got. We'll use part of the existing arm to plug the relays until I can design a better option." He flips it over and starts polishing down the ragged metal edges, clipping wires, smoothing out the stump.

Bucky's writhing, screaming at this point: there are no words, just raw, exposed nerves and agony. Steve presses a hand to his chest. "Breathe," he orders, one eye on the monitor. "Just breathe."

He's breathing all right, in between screams of pain. Howard races over with the stump of arm, slips it into place, and breathes a sigh of relief as it clicks back in, Bucky's features smooth out and he relaxes, shaking. "There we go, pal," he says. "Easy does it."

There's a sharp smell of urine, and Steve looks down to see a wet spot on Bucky's pants. He turns to Carol Garcia. "Would you please go fetch Sergeant Barnes a fresh set of clothes?"

"Of course," she says, understanding immediately, and leaves in a rush, white cap bouncing.

"We'll just smooth this off with some—" Howard hammers in at the edges, bringing the arm in on itself slightly so that the raw interior is shielded by the metal of the arm. He grabs up a few scrap pieces and welds them into place, and Bucky stares into the overhead light, shaking like a leaf. "I'm sorry, Barnes," Howard mutters, working like a fiend. "Jesus, I'm sorry."

"You let me know if you can feel anything, okay?" Steve rubs Bucky's other arm. "Any exposed anything or any pain."

"Sergeant Barnes, James…Buchanan," he mutters, seemingly not present with Steve at all. "Three, two…five, five, seven, zero, three, eight. United States Army."

"That's just fine," says Steve, trying to be encouraging. "You're going to be okay."

Nurse Garcia comes back in with a fresh set of clothing under her arm. "I can change him, if he can't—"

Bucky rouses slightly at the sound of her voice. "Hey there, Carrie," he mutters, and she smiles, leaning over so he can find her face. "What d'you say we…go dancing?"

"Maybe later," she says lightly, "after I get off my shift."

"You know, you kinda look like Rita Hayworth," he slurs, and the anesthesiologist sends him back under, mask firmly over his face as he slips away.

Carol turns to Steve. "Sweet man. Complete liar, but very sweet."

He smiles in spite of himself. "I'll help you change him out later if I need to, when he can sit up."

Howard sets down his soldering iron. "Done," he proclaims, and they examine his handiwork. A polished metal stump gleams where Barnes' arm used to be, and there's not a single exposed wire or rough edge to be seen. "All right." He turns to the anesthesiologist. "Bring him out, and we'll ask how it feels."

The mask comes off, and Bucky slowly comes around, blinking in the overhead light. "I'm cold," he whispers.

"We'll get you a blanket," Nurse Carol promises, and hurries off to find one.

Howard puts a hand on his knee. "You take some good deep breaths for me and tell me how your shoulder feels."

Bucky does as he's told and looks down at his left stump of an arm, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Huh," he says.

"Any pain?" asks Steve.

"No," says Bucky, sounding almost surprised. He wiggles his stump slightly, experimenting on what he can do: back and forth, left to right. "Not half as bad as I thought." He looks down at his wet pants. "Criminy." A scarlet stain blooms on his cheeks.

"We have a change of clothes," says Nurse Carol, patting the stack. "And a shower, in the lab. Don't worry about it. I've seen worse."

"Thanks," he mutters, still embarrassed, and slides off the table. Unbalanced, he wavers for a moment on his feet, then takes a few experimental steps, feeling out the loss of weight on one side of his body. "Weird."

Howard boxes up the remains of the metal arm. "This is going in a vault and being studied so I can get a handle on whatever the Soviets were doing with their tech for prosthesis," he says, almost to himself. "Who knows? Maybe we'll be able to reverse engineer stuff for veterans."

"Easy," says Steve, watching Bucky anxiously. "You got it?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'll, uh, go shower," says Bucky, and shuffles off in an odd half-balanced gait toward the shower in the back of the lab with his clean clothes.

He's still holding the stuffed cat.

* * *

Her dreams are full, every night: they never used to be.

Trees overhead, two men: one man is golden and the other is dark. The golden man has two hands of flesh and the dark man is half metal. Both men have blue eyes. There is a question that Natalia is supposed to find out the answer to, but she cannot ever remember what the question is in her dreams.

Sometimes in the dreams she drives a knife into the dark man. In these, he is Chernobog, the god of death and darkness: he dissipates like the morning mist, and the golden man looks at her with eyes so sad and knowing and beautiful that she thinks he must be Belobog, light and sun. _What have I done?_ She wants to scream at this man, this man who knows her name, though she does not know him. _Who are you? What have you done to my mind?_

_Who am I?_

Natalia wakes, and puts her dreams aside: she goes about her daily work, teaching, practicing, drilling. She does not remember the dreams in the daytime—but at night, when she lies down on her cot and chains her wrist to her bedpost, the dreams come back, and she knows, and she remembers.

She had not been able to avoid being wiped, but she remembers why, and she remembers how: they had found her unconscious and alone and she had been sent to the MGB for questioning, then returned to the Red Room. She had been wiped. She remembers the chair, the terrible chair, electricity searing through her brain—but they did not know that it had not worked.

Sometimes it does not work. She knows this. She believes it may be because of the _sverkhchelovec_ serum flowing in her blood, in her body: something doesn't quite add up. Regardless of why, she still remembers, and she takes pains to conceal that she remembers from her superiors, from the matrons, from the officers.

So she dreams alone. Sometimes, the dark man strangles her to death. Sometimes the golden man shoots her; sometimes they both die, sometimes they both kill her. _Agent Johnson_ , she knows the golden man called himself. The dark one is the Asset, but was called _Bucky_ : she keeps the knowledge locked away deep down where they cannot find it.

Natalia will use that knowledge. One day. Maybe she won't.

It depends on whatever circumstance she finds herself in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience. It's going to be an insanely busy week here and I wanted to make sure this chapter was perfect before I posted it, so it's taken a bit longer to whip into shape! Coming up next...any guesses?


	19. October 1, 1950

"Jesus," mutters Steve, standing next to Bucky in front of the podium where Phillips is waiting, looking entirely out of his ordinary comfort zone in a pressed suit. "It was a two minute walk from the license window to here. Where are they?"

"Relax," Bucky tells him, grinning. His empty left sleeve has been pinned to his jacket, his right hand holding onto the rings. "She'll be here. We have twenty minutes before we have to be out of the room."

It's a sparsely-attended affair: Howard Stark and his butler, Edwin Jarvis, are sitting in the front row in impeccable suits with a woman between them who's got flaming red hair and a very delicate, fine-boned face; Bea, Barbara, Carol, and Betty are lined up on the other row, dressed very nicely; there are a few agents filling out the other seats, including a handsome dark-haired man Steve doesn't recognize who walks with a crutch.

The back doors open, and everyone stands, fear and anticipation trickling down Steve's spine and into his gut. Michael and Peggy walk through, trailed by a glowing Anna, who carries a small posy of flowers and wears an ivory pinafore with lacy socks and shiny white shoes without a scuff on them. She had taken her duties as bridesmaid very seriously, insisting that she'd never had such a pretty dress in her life and that she would keep it clean forever and ever. Michael's using a cane, his left leg in a cast and still giving him trouble, but he's dressed in a suit and looks healthy and fresh, eager to see his sister married. And Peggy—

Peggy—

Steve can't quite look at her. It's like she's the sun and he's blinded, he's not supposed to look directly at her—but he has to, because Bucky's elbowing him in the gut, so he does, and he can't really breathe.

She's wearing an ivory lace suit, jacket buttoned up to her throat with a rounded collar and a trim waist, the scalloped hem of the jacket flowing out to merge with the slightly full skirt that hits just below her knee: stockings, ivory pumps. Her hair is curled and done back in an elegant wave, and she doesn't have a veil, but she does have a very proper ivory wrap-around hat perched on her head and decorated with white flowers.

He feels incredibly inadequate in his double-breasted gray suit, even though it's new. "Hi," he whispers as Michael stands with her, her hand resting in the crook of his arm.

"Hello," she responds, slightly breathlessly.

"All right," says Phillips, everyone looking up immediately. "I've been requested by the bride not to beat about the bush, so that's what we'll do." A chuckle goes up from the assembled crowd. "We are gathered here today in the sight of God and man to witness the marriage of, ah, Grant Steven Rogers and Elizabeth Margaret Spratt. Who brings this woman to be married to this man?"

"She brought herself," says Michael, "but I certainly walked her here." That gets a laugh from Howard, and Peggy rolls her eyes as he guides her over to face Steve and puts her hand in his. "There you are, darling," he says softly, and goes to sit down, Anna taking her place next to the bride after handing the bouquet over.

"Good, good." Phillips frowns at the booklet. "Miss Spratt, will you repeat after me, please. I, Elizabeth Margaret, take thee, Grant Steven, to be my lawfully wedded husband."

"I, Elizabeth Margaret, take thee, Grant Steven, to be my lawfully wedded husband," Peggy repeats, gazing up at Steve, and Steve can barely hear the rest of the vows until she whispers, "till death do us part," and realizes it's his turn, and he's not sure if he can speak.

"I, Grant Steven, take thee, Margaret—I mean, Elizabeth Margaret—" smiles flicker across the faces of everyone in the room, "to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

"Who has the rings?" Phillips asks brusquely, and Bucky steps forward, handing them both over to Steve. They're two gold bands: Steve's is plain and Peggy's is delicately incised with leaves and circles. Steve plucks hers out of Bucky's hand and turns to Phillips. "Right," he says, and peers down at the book again. "Repeat after me again. With this ring, I thee wed."

"With this ring," Steve echoes, slipping it onto her third finger, "I thee wed."

Peggy plucks his band out of his palm and takes his hand in slightly shaky fingers. Phillips nods at her. "With this ring, I thee wed."

She carefully eases it onto his ring finger. "With this ring, I thee wed," she says very strongly, looking up at him.

"By the power invested in me by the state of Virginia, I now proclaim you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." Phillips smiles, looking almost misty, and Steve leans down and gives her a nervous little peck on the mouth: he doesn't want to embarrass her in front of everyone, and when he pulls away there's a smattering of applause from the spectators. Peggy looks beatific, beaming at everyone and clutching his hand in her free one as they turn and face the small crowd. Phillips dabs at his eyes with a handkerchief. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers."

* * *

The reception is hosted by Howard Stark, in the house in Forest Hills. He'd leaped at the chance to throw a big party for the pair of them. "Really," he'd insisted, despite all protests, "it's the least I can do," so Peggy finds herself changed into a red party dress and swept away from her groom by their magnanimous host, who introduces "Elizabeth Rogers" to the likes of Joan Fontaine and Betty Grable.

"Gracious, congratulations," says Joan, smiling. "It was ever so nice of Howard to invite me."

"Yes," says Peggy, feeling as if she's in a whirlwind, "I had no idea it would be such an affair." She gives Howard a sideways look that he pretends not to see. "How are things in Hollywood?"

"Oh, not wonderful for me, presently," says Betty, looking slightly downcast. "D'you know, I can't find a single film I _want_ to do? It sounds awful, but I almost miss the war. At least I had steady work."

"I certainly know how that feels," Peggy tells her.

Betty squints over her head. "I think your husband—oh, yes, he's been trapped by Lauren Bacall against the punch table. Has anyone ever mentioned he looks a bit like Captain America?"

Peggy doesn't know which of these alarming statements to address first. "Goodness, I—well, come to think of it—"

"Oh, don't mind me. Go rescue poor Grant and I'll entertain Howard." She beams at Stark, who lets go of Peggy immediately to strike up a conversation.

Peggy slips away and manages to tuck her hand into Steve's elbow, smiling brightly at Ms. Bacall. "Hello," she says politely. "I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure."

"Oh, Mrs. Rogers," says the other woman, smiling. Her voice is just as tawny-gold as her hair: sultry and thick, and Steve rather looks as if he's been beaten about the head. "Do call me Lauren, and congratulations on the nuptials. I was just telling your husband about meeting Truman in '45."

"Oh, I remember that," says Peggy, flashbacks of Bacall lounging atop a piano spinning through her mind's eye. "I'm afraid I must drag my husband off to, erm, get punch." She feels extremely dumpy next to Lauren Bacall: the woman must weigh twenty pounds less than her and is certainly about an inch taller. "Lovely meeting you, Lauren."

"Oh, of course. Lovely to meet you both." Lauren waves coyly at Steve, who returns the wave, blushing in spite of himself, and Peggy firmly marches him off.

"Gosh, she's terrifying," he manages, once they reach the punch table. "It's like I don't know if she wants to murder me or kiss me."

"Well, if she tries either, she'll have another thing coming," says Peggy, half-bristling.

Steve blinks. "What's got your dander up?"

"Nothing," she says. "I'm starving. I don't think I ate lunch and it's nearly three. Let's see how many hors d'oeuvres  we can stuff into my bag, shall we?"

* * *

The party ends around six, and Steve and Peggy are bundled off into a sleek Rolls-Royce, driven by none other than the inimitable Edwin Jarvis, who informs Peggy he is more than delighted to leave Howard alone for an hour or two while he drives them to their new house. She tucks herself into Steve's side on the buttery-soft leather seat and rests her head on his massive shoulder. He puts his hand on her knee and just sits there as the car purrs over the Potomac and into Arlington.

Of course, she'd be lying to herself if she said she wasn't nervous in some way: he seems the same, quiet and slightly fidgety. Peggy tries to take her mind off it and thinks about the house instead, bought just a week ago with all their things moved in and more to boot. She hasn't even seen a photograph yet, but Steve had made a few trips over to move in some of his things, and he's promised her it's exactly right. Her only stipulation had been that the place had a back garden, but she's eager to see it.

Jarvis pulls up at precisely seven on the dot in front of a house in a lovely suburb, and Peggy nearly leaps out of the car, a bundle of nerves. "I'm to keep an eye on you both until you're safely inside," he informs them as they slip out the back door. "Agents are stationed already. Have a lovely evening, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers."

"Thank you, Jarvis," says Peggy warmly. "Really, I cannot express my gratitude—"

"In the event you need a single thing," says Jarvis, "you must feel free to call on me at any time. Anything at all, Mrs. Rogers." He smiles, and Peggy clasps his hand over the back of the seat in her own before following Steve out to the sidewalk as the Rolls-Royce idles.

"Oh—oh, my," she says faintly.

Fresh yellow paint, a large yard, a porch, shade trees: it's absolutely perfect. There's a new Studebaker waiting in the driveway, and whoever had been in the house last had left the porch lights on and a lamp on inside: golden light streams into the yard, across the porch, out the windows. _Home._

"Come on," says Steve, slipping his hand into hers. "I'll show you around."

They head up the walk, and just at the door Steve makes a little _hup_ sound and sweeps her off her feet in a bridal carry. Peggy clings to his neck, grinning. "Carrying your bride across the threshold, are you?"

"Sure am," he says, and walks her into the house, setting her down gently on the wooden floor.

Peggy looks around in satisfaction as she inspects the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. Everything is precisely where it belongs, not even a teacup out of place: the sofas are new, and there's her record player tucked into the corner. "It's absolutely perfect," she says firmly.

"Do you—" Steve looks incredibly nervous now, his fingers drumming out a staccato against his thigh. "Do you want to see the bedroom?"

"Do I—oh. Yes. Yes, I do," she says, curious to see what it looks like, as she knows her old bed simply won't fit the two of them. He heads down the hallway and she follows, eyes widening as he steps into the room and flicks on the light.

Their room is—it's exactly right. The bed is large, the frame made of dark-stained polished wood, the coverlet atop the quilt a thick, blue satin. She steps in and looks around: the walls are white, there's her vanity set up on one side of the room and on the other side, a reading chair—a dresser, a wardrobe, a door that leads to a private bathroom.

She turns to Steve. "I—it's lovely," she says, her heart in her throat. _Why on earth are you stammering like a schoolgirl?_ The bedroom feels entirely too small, all at once: stifling. "Erm—might we go into the kitchen? I could use some tea."

Steve looks almost relieved. "Oh! Yeah. Sure." He heads that way, and Peggy takes a deep breath, slipping off her shoes before following. _There's no need to be so frightened. It's Steve bloody Rogers._ But she is, and she doesn't know why.

By the time she gets in, Steve's already taken off his jacket and has the kettle on, getting down a teacup from the shelf. "Jarvis is already gone," he remarks, smiling at her from under his eyelashes.

"I'm not surprised." Peggy crosses over to the table and sits down, looking around at the new pots and pans, the kitchen appliances, the tea-towels. Anything but Steve and his arms and his broad back that looks like it might explode out of his shirt at any moment.

"So, uh," he offers, lamely, as they wait for the water to boil, "you—you want to sit in here, or in the living room?"

"Those couches are so new I'm afraid I'll dent them," she says, smiling. "Here is fine."

"Right." Steve fidgets some more and leaps into action the moment the kettle whistles, pouring her tea with hands that move far too delicately for their size. "Here you go." He sets her cup down, and she sips at it, savoring the taste.

"I'll be damned," she says. "You made a decent cup of tea."

"I'm full of surprises," he tells her, sitting down on the other chair.

Then they just…sit there. Peggy drinks all her tea and doesn't make eye contact with Steve, and Steve rests his forearms on the table and looks at the Formica top.

"Right," says Peggy abruptly, breaking the silence just as Steve blurts out, "Peggy—"

They both laugh. "No, you go first," says Peggy, waving her hand.

"You sure?" Steve still looks like he wants to crawl out of his skin.

"Yes, of course. Go on."

"I—if you don't—that is, I mean—" He's rapidly turning a lovely shade of rosy pink, the flush creeping from his collar to his cheeks, and he runs a hand through his hair. "We don't have to—do things tonight if we don't—if _you_ don't—want to. Marital, uh, things."

"Ah," says Peggy, gut clenching. "No, I—erm, I do—at least, I think I do. I'm just—" She leans back against her chair and sighs. "To be entirely honest, I feel as if my stomach is full of bees all humming about madly and I haven't been able to relax for hours."

"Oh, good," he tells her. "That makes two of us."

"You?" Peggy gapes. "What on earth could you possibly have to be nervous about?"

"I—" Steve's still scarlet, hands twisting around each other. The veins at the wrists are blue: the knuckles still pink: he's always had such fine hands. "I'm just—worried I'll hurt you."

"Oh," says Peggy. "Is there—is there a reason you ought to be?"

"I'm not sure," he says honestly. "I've never, uh, I don't—I'm not—I mean—" Steve groans and sinks down into his chair, covering his eyes with a hand. "The serum—it, uh, it…changed a few things."

Peggy fights to keep her cheeks from blooming as red as his. Somehow, she's sure what he's about to tell her wasn't included in the SSR files. "Go on," she prompts.

"My, uh. Well. The—the endurance, for one," he says, studying a spot on the Formica. "It can take me a while to, uh, finish. But not always."

"Well, I hear that's the opposite problem with most men," Peggy says, trying to bring some levity into the conversation.

"Ha, ha," he deadpans, looking up at her. "And in case you're forgetting, I'm also really strong."

"Oh, it never crossed my mind," she says, allowing her eyes to linger on his arms.

"I just—" Steve still sounds anxious, and she looks up. His brow is creased. "I don't want to hurt you. God forbid I break something, or—I don't know—"

"Would it help if—" Peggy gnaws on her lip. "Come on," she says abruptly, interrupting herself as she stands. "Let's go to bed. I'm sure we can work out an arrangement."

Steve blinks up at her and follows, trailing her down to the bedroom and standing respectfully away from the bed out of habit as she shuts the door and sits on the coverlet. "Would it help if what?" he asks.

"Perhaps we might work out a, ah, physical arrangement where you can't—" Peggy shuts her eyes, no, she _must_ say it—"control your, erm, movement as well?"

There's a bit of a silence. "Huh," says Steve. "Okay."

"You, ah—" Peggy's unable to look at him. "You can take your shirt off."

He unbuttons it, slipping the thing off his arms and peeling off his undershirt, standing there in just a pair of trousers. Peggy almost wishes she had something stronger than tea to drink. He's golden in the soft light from the bedside lamp; every hair standing out to form a halo—a silhouette of unearthly origins. "This, uh—this okay?"

"Very," she says, pressing her legs together under her dress. "Come here and kiss me."

Steve very willingly obeys, leaning down to press his mouth to hers on the side of the bed. His lips are plush and soft and warm, and for a moment Peggy forgets to be afraid as her hands rake through his hair, slip across his shoulders, trail down to his waist and cling to his belt. She breaks away to breathe, and he whispers, "Should you—do you want to—" with a meaningful look at the buttons on her dress.

"Oh, right," she says, and unbuttons her dress to the waist, exposing her lace-cupped brassiere. It was the one thing she'd allowed herself to buy as a frivolous purchase for her own wedding, and Steve's eyes go wide at the sight of the cream lace clinging to her ample cleavage.

"Oh," he says, almost reverently. He reaches one hand in to experimentally brush the curve and swell of flesh, and his breath stutters a little.

"I'm no Lauren Bacall," she says, fighting a shiver.

"Thank God for that," he says roughly, running his thumbs over her skin.

"Would you like to kiss them?" she teases, feeling bolder as his hands tremble slightly.

"God, yes," he mutters, and presses his mouth to her skin, using his hands to cup and squeeze and lift and press her into his face. Peggy lets out the very smallest noise, and his grip tightens on her, not too hard, but firmly enough to make her shiver as his tongue rasps across the upper half of both her breasts.

"You—you can—" She's nearly dizzy; heat is gathering between her legs and she's afraid if she doesn't say something now she'll lose her nerve. "Take it off. Steve."

He answers with a ragged little noise and slips the dress off her shoulders, careful and gentle, then lower, down around her waist where it shines in a heap of scarlet fabric. Steve looks her right in the eyes as he reaches behind her back and takes her brassiere off, and she can barely make eye contact as he slips the thing off and sets it aside.

A little sigh escapes his mouth, and he very gently presses a pair of kisses to her chest, one for each breast. "Do you—my pants—"

" _Yes_ , take them off," she stammers, too flustered to think. "Please."

Steve stands up and unbuckles his belt, then peels off his trousers. Peggy shuts her eyes out of habit, her face heating up as she hears the clink and rustle of his belt and his pants; then he's silent. Waiting. Her heart pounds in her ears.

"You can, uh…open your eyes," he coaxes.

She does. Then she screws them shut again, choking on her own shock: he's completely naked. "Oh—"

Steve is instantly apologetic. "Shoot, sorry—"

"No, no—" _I have to do this. He's my husband._ She takes a deep breath and opens her right eye a crack, then her left. He looks like—he looks like a sculpture: golden skin and blond hair blurring the edges of his body in the lamplight. She's not sure what to look at first. The hair between his thighs and under his arms is light brown and looks soft, and there's a very scattered trail leading from below his navel to—

Well. She can look at that in a moment. Her eyes go back up to his shoulders, tracing the deeply incised muscle there: the broad chest, the finely carved collarbones, the pectoral and abdominals—there's the faintest definition near his obliques, he's built for power, not looks, but his looks certainly haven't suffered in the past five years for all that.

No. Not five years: _over eighty_. She shuts her eyes again, taking a deep breath, then opens them again and forces herself to look at his crotch. Steve's…well, it's verging on _alarmingly_ big: it hangs at a bit of a low angle, as if its own weight prevents it from pointing upward, and the tip is slick and flushed. She's never seen a man's… _organ_ in this particular state before, apart from crudely-drawn cartoons, and it's a bit of a shock: her face goes hot in spite of herself and she looks at his face instead.

"You're… large," she says, and doesn't mean for it to come out in a nervous squeak.

His eyes widen and he puts a hand in front, as if to shield her. "I—I know. I mean—I mean I'll do my best not to hurt you—"

"I—" Peggy stands quickly, averting her eyes as she quickly shucks off the rest of her dress, then her stockings, her garter belt, and her briefs, then turns to face him, hands on her hips. "There. Now we're even."

He can't stop looking at her, his eyes trying to tear away from her body but entirely unable to. "Jeez," he whispers, blinking. "Can I—can I touch you?"

"Yes," she says, probably too quickly, and he steps closer, close enough that a particular appendage below the belt presses into her hip, but he pays it no mind and just runs his hands over her shoulders, her breasts, her waist. The pads of his fingers dig into her skin and she automatically stands on her tiptoes, her body seeking the warmth of his. Both breasts press against his chest, and Steve makes an agonized little noise, clinging to her tighter. She can feel him trembling. "It's all right," she says, wrapping her bare arms around his waist.

"I don't—oh, God—" He sounds half-broken, and she pulls away quickly, searching his face to ascertain what on earth the matter is.

"Steve?"

"Just—give me a moment," he says, and backs away, breathing heavily. Peggy notices a thick drop of clear fluid gathering at the tip of his—lord, _roger_ sounds ridiculous, _dick,_ perhaps _?_ —well, anyway, he seems to be leaking, and he puts his hands down at his sides and looks as if he's concentrating very hard.

Peggy looks him over anxiously. "Is it too much?" While her mind is taken up with an anxiety concerning the marriage bed, her body is eager to get on with the proceedings, and she feels as if she might combust under the opposing forces. "I can—we can lie down, if you—"

"Yes," he says, voice gone hoarse. "Yes, I want to—lie down."

Peggy moves aside and lets him unfold himself onto his back on the coverlet, golden and rose against the cool dark blue satin. "Better?" She kneels beside his hips, waiting for him to say something, anything.

His chest rises and falls, and his dick rests on his lower belly, nearly reaching his navel. "If I hurt you—" he begins, voice shaking.

"You won't," says Peggy, and she's almost sure of it, too. "Look. Feel here." She takes his hand and carefully draws it to the apex of her thighs, letting his fingers trace past the dark curls that cover her, and behind, under, where the soft wet pink of her is blooming open like a rose. "Do you…can you feel that?" It's the most brazen thing she's done so far—but no, it's not, he's her husband and he ought to know her body.

"Yes," says Steve, pink-cheeked and sweating. His fingers, blunt and thick, push into her slightly, and she squeaks a little, startled by how nice it feels, and _there's_ a bold idea she hadn't considered.

"I think…if you remain on your back, like so, and I perhaps—well, I do the work, so to speak—I don't believe I'll come to harm at all. Is that sufficient?"

He's silent, deep breaths expanding his chest, his eyes glassy and distant.

"Steve?"

"Y-yeah," he manages, bringing himself back to the present. His fingers are still just inside her, and he withdraws them with a slick sound, his hand resting on her thigh. "Just. I don't—I don't know what it's gonna feel like—"

"I don't either," she tells him, throwing a leg across his waist, "but I suppose we'll both find out." He's warm under her, solid and real as anything. One of her hands skims across his lower belly, and he stiffens, shuddering.

" _Please_ —"

He sounds as if he might break into a thousand pieces, and Peggy's not sure she doesn't like it. "I'm going to lean down and kiss you now," she warns him, and he has just enough time to take a breath before she's pressed herself to his body, bending flat, mouth on his chest and his dick trapped tight between her belly and his.

Steve _wails_ ; there's no other word for the broken, stilted string of words that come spilling out of his mouth as he jerks his hips under her. "Please! Peggy please, please, aahhh, please _stop please_ —"

She sits up immediately, fascinated as he reaches down and tugs, pinching lightly at the head of his cock, his face and throat and chest all the same blotchy rose color. "Oh. That sensitive?"

"God," he pants, crisis averted as he stares at her balefully. "You're killing me, you know that—"

"You ought to put that thing somewhere safe where it can go off without harm," she tells him with a straight face, and grins as he turns even redder. "It's perfectly all right, I promise."

"Please, just." He inhales hard, and steels himself. "I—it's a lot—"

"Shall we try my idea, then?"

"What—what idea?"

"The—where I get on top, and you—"

"Oh. _Oh._ Yeah. Yes." Steve scoots up the bed slightly, half-reclining, and Peggy gingerly takes him in hand, rather fascinated by the object in question: it's smoother than she'd thought, and there's a bit of give between the skin covering it and the stiffness inside. Steve stiffens, but only a small sound escapes him. "I'm fine," he assures her in a high-pitched voice.

"You're sure." Peggy raises herself up on her knees to work the tip of him where he's supposed to go. It's a bit strange, and he feels too wide to fit at first. "Because if you're not—"

"No," he rasps, his throat bobbing. He looks utterly wrecked and they've barely done anything yet. "Just—ah—"

She notches him _there_ , where he's meant to be, and swallows. "Right. Here we go."

"Don't—don't slam down all at once," he says quickly, eyes wide. "Just—easy. You h-have to be wet enough to—"

"Like—" Peggy rubs experimentally between her legs, her fingers finding the very front and top, where she knows _that_ spot is, and feels a slight tingle spread down her thighs as she concentrates. She's not sure if she's getting any wetter, but she certainly feels aroused, and gives a little wiggle of her hips to test the friction. He pops inside her, just an inch, but she sucks in a breath at the intrusion. It feels… _nice._ Odd, but nice: and it feels as if she should keep going.

"Just—just—" Steve's mouth is open, his pupils dilated so that the black is swallowing the blue, and his hands are shaking on her thighs. "I—I—"

"Shh, it's all right," she whispers, and carefully, _carefully_ sinks down. It's slow going, and she winces for a moment as a patch of dry skin halfway down catches a delicate spot of tissue and pulls it inward. "Ooh, ow—"

Steve looks half-frantic. "You don't—have to—"

"I _want_ to," she pants, and raises herself up a bit, using her fingers to spread more of the slick between her legs onto his cock before trying again. "Don't move, I've got it."

"Yes, ma'am," he wheezes, and sucks his bottom lip into his teeth, eyes squeezes shut as she sinks down again. "Oh, holy mother of _God_."

Peggy tries not to cry out as she slips slowly down, down, and comes to rest at the base of him, her backside firmly pressed to his thighs. She takes a moment to breathe, because she's sweating a little in spite of herself: he's verging on painfully thick, but it isn't unbearable at all. It rather feels as if he's lodged up somewhere near her kidneys, or perhaps her lungs, because she's struggling to take a breath. She had never thought anything could feel like this in the world. "Christ," she manages, then looks down at Steve.

Steve. _Steve,_ who's gone scarlet to his hairline and is visibly shaking, lips swollen and wet from biting, eyes squeezed shut; Steve, her _husband_ , who looks like he might fall apart at any moment, looks absolutely beautiful. She's not sure she should move yet.

"It's all right," she manages, fighting the urge to start bouncing on him. "You—you're—it's in. All the way. You can open your eyes."

The only sound out of his mouth is a weak, strained, " _Unnnghh."_

"Steve?"

He sucks in another breath and shakes his head, hair sticking to his forehead. "I can't," he gasps, his pulse fluttering and throbbing in his throat visibly. "I can't, I can't, if I see you like this, if I—if—it won't—I can't—"

"Can't what?" Peggy's baffled.

"Peggy," he moans, and grips her waist. "Oh, God. Oh, _God_ , you're my wife—"

"I should—hope so," she says with some difficulty, and grunts softly as his hands settle on her hips, thumbs braced across her pelvis. "Take your time, darling. It's all right."

Steve opens his eyes at last and finds hers, and they're blurred and gleaming with tears. When he speaks again, his voice is dark and hoarse. "If you don't start moving, I'm going to lose my goddamn mind."

Peggy plants her hands by his head, leaning forward, and clumsily moves her hips; she's never done this, but it can't be _that_ difficult, can it? She fights back a cry, however; every single inch of him is dragging along every single inch of her, somewhere inside herself where she's never even dared to venture, and as she sits back to bring him deeper again the head of him _pushes_ into something sensitive between her bladder and her—well, the front of her insides, and her breath hitches in surprise. "Oh—I don't—"

"What, what is it?" he pants, splayed out under her.

"Too—I think—" She hates to admit it, after being so confident, but she hadn't _known_ ; how could she? "Big. Too—too big—" Another experimental roll of her hips wrings a cry out of her, and she grips the coverlet with both hands. It feels… _good_ , but it's just quite a bit more than she had bargained for.

"We could," gasps Steve. "Try. Another angle. I can—I think I can control how h-hard I— _Peggy_ —" She's rolled her hips again, and the drag and stretch makes them both shudder.

"All right," she pants, trembling. "You—can you move us without, erm, dislodging—I don't think I'll be able to get you back in again—"

"Yes," he says, and pulls her close, then rolls them both over, Peggy underneath him with her legs still bracketing his hips like a pair of parenthesis. Steve hovers above her, his hair mussed and his eyes bright. "This better?"

"I—I think so—" Peggy reaches up and grips his shoulders, which are slick with sweat, likely from the effort of restraining himself. "Right. You—can move. Slowly, if you please."

He presses his forehead to hers, takes a breath, and pulls out slowly, halfway inside her, then pushes back in, shaking the whole way. Peggy lets out a choked sound, tears in her eyes in spite of herself, and grips his hair with one hand: it's just on the edge of far too much, and she's struggling to take it. "Christ Almighty," she sobs. " _Big."_

"We c-can stop—if you—" Steve's struggling to make himself coherent, one hand tangled in her hair and the other gripping the coverlet.

"No, _don't_ , don't you dare," she demands, and kicks at him with her heels. "Just—go on. I can take it."

Steve obeys, thrusting back and forth a few more times, and Peggy muffles a shriek into her other hand: the bloody _size_ of him might just kill her after all, but she doesn't care—if he stops, she'll—she'll—

"I'm not—gonna last," says Steve, low and rough and desperate in her ear. "Gonna. Lose it. I can't—I'm sorry, I can't—"

She finds her last iota of sanity and clings to him. "Please," she gasps. "Just—just do what you have to—"

"If I—if you need me to stop—shout _Red Room_ ," he growls, and pulls her leg up to press alongside his waist. "Lock your ankles. Hold on."

"Yes, sir," she pants, and that's the last coherent thing she says for the next five full minutes, as Steve plows her into the mattress with most of his strength, the bedframe slamming against the wall with a rhythmic banging. Peggy buries her face in Steve's neck and lets herself go, _really_ lets herself go: she allows herself to cry out, to shriek, to groan and make noises she hadn't thought she was capable of making—but then, she hadn't thought herself capable of feeling what she's currently feeling. Something she vaguely recognizes as a climax is building somewhere, but she can't quite get a handle on it: it doesn't feel like when she does anything to herself, at any rate, and it feels rather as if she's going to—

"Ohhhhh, _nooo_ ," she wails, unable to stop herself as she comes and _comes_ : heat flooding her body as she bears down around Steve and shrieks out her climax to its completion. It's far more forceful than anything else she's ever experienced, and she feels almost half-afraid of her own body.

He's only spurred on, and she cries out as he tightens his grip on her thigh and plunges deeper, which she hadn't thought was actually possible. " _Peggy_ —" They're too close to the edge of the bed. With a flail of limbs, they fall off, and neither of them cares. Their mouths find each other, messy and sloppy with clacking teeth, and Steve _whines_ as she sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and bites, then rolls them both to a sitting position, still furiously chasing his own climax through her with his hips. The carpeting in the bedroom is coarse, and Peggy squeals as Steve pushes her across it, bare-bottomed, to fetch up in a sitting position against the side of the bed.

"Don't," she growls, almost angry at the loss as he withdraws to get her situated, but she moans again when he re-enters her, splitting her open anew and effectively pinning her to the bed. "What—"

"Here," he rasps, and lifts her knees up over his shoulders, his eyes almost black in the lamplight with hunger. "Hold onto the bed, not me."

"I c— _oh_ ," she spits, as he begins to move. This new angle is perfectly awful, and awfully perfect: every stroke slams that tender spot somewhere inside her and she writhes, unable to get away from the inexorable onslaught of feeling. " _Steve_ —ah, ah, _ah, oh, no, no—"_

"Do you want me to stop?" he pants.

" _No_ I bloody well do not want you to _stop_ —" She cuts herself off at the sudden realization that she's going to wet herself: the sensation is unmistakable and she writhes in horror. "It—I can't—"

"Yes, you can," he gasps, "you can do it, come for me, sweetheart—"

She can't help it, not after that. _Liquid_ gushes from her, hot and wet and soaking both of them from the chest down, but Peggy can't even worry about that because she's seized by the most explosively intense climax she's ever had in her life: her whole body is wracked, every muscle shaking and taut as her body finishes out the grand finale, feeling like it's dissolving into warm pudding as Steve bends over her and keeps going, high-pitched little noises shaking out of his throat. She thinks she might have screamed. She's not sure.

"It's all right," she moans when she finds her voice, and repeats his own words, not knowing what on earth to say at this precise moment. "Come for me, darling; Steve, it's all right—"

Steve whimpers, low and shaky, and one hand finds hers, fingers interlacing. "Don't go—"

"I'm here, my darling," she whispers, and strokes his hair as her body protests the continued onslaught: she's sore as the devil but she doesn't care. "It's all right."

He looks like he might cry, and his hips stutter. "I'm— _ahh_ —" and after that he's coming, a litany of nonsense sounds spilling out of his desperate mouth as he crushes himself to her and shakes like a leaf.

Peggy clings to him as well as she can until he sags bonelessly against her and half-collapses to the floor, chest heaving. She puts her hand on his knee lightly and just takes him in for a moment. His chest is gleaming, his mouth is wet and swollen, and there are tears streaking his face: Steve Rogers looks utterly and obscenely debauched, and she rather likes it. "Are you with me?" she asks.

"Here," he manages, eyes finding her. "Uh…'m here." He looks dazed, likely high off the experience he's just had, his pupils still dilated. "You—" Both eyes flicker down to between her legs, then to between his. "You're bleeding." Sure enough, smears of blood and spunk mark her thighs and his softening flesh, not much, but enough to be concerned about stains.

"Am I?" she says, shutting her eyes in exhaustion. "Hadn't noticed." She hadn't expected she _would_ bleed when stuck, especially not since she'd fallen off that wall when she was twelve and landed wrongly. That had been—well, the blood hadn't lasted very long, perhaps a day or so, and her mother had been furious at her carelessness, though _why_ precisely she hadn't been able to work out until she was older. As if it had mattered at all in the end.

"I'll get—" Steve struggles upright and drags himself to stand. "Washcloth. Be right back." He stumbles off toward the bathroom.

Peggy wishes he had just held her. She wonders if it's worth it to attempt the momentous feat of standing and climbing onto the bed, but reflects that bloodstains are an absolute chore to get out of satin and that the carpet will be less time-consuming to deal with, so she merely rests, savoring the burn between her legs and the patch of what she's sure is tender rug-burn on her backside.

Steve comes back with the washcloth and kneels down, carefully wiping her clean, then himself. "Can you stand?"

"Give me a moment," she says wearily, and accepts his hands, dragging her upright. "I don't want to sit on the bed yet—I need—"

"I'll get you a, uh, Modess," he says quickly. "I saw some in the bathroom."

"Thank you," she whispers, too embarrassed to look at him as he hurries back to the toilet and comes back with her sanitary belt and a Modess pad, which she allows him to help her put on, because her legs simply won't lift on their own, the muscle wailing from six sustained minutes of tension. "God," she mutters, sitting down on the bed gingerly once it's on. "This isn't quite what I expected when I thought of a wedding night."

"Oh," Steve says in a very different tone of voice. "I'm—I'm really sorry."

She looks at him incredulously. "What? Whatever for?"

"For—" He gestures, looking helpless. "I wanted it to be—I wanted you to like it."

"I did like it," she says firmly, and looks down, blushing. "Really. Just—the—oh, it's so undignified to have your husband help you into your belt. Good Lord."

Steve chuckles. "Don't worry about that." His face settles back into seriousness. "If you're still bleeding tomorrow, we're going to the hospital. I might have torn something."

"And won't that be a fun conversation to have with the doctor," she retorts, lying down and exhaling deeply. The satin is cool against her warm back, and she affects an American accent. "Oh, _yes_ , Doctor, you see, it's just that my husband is so ridiculously well-endowed from a secret serum that he totally wrecked my insides. _Do_ prescribe me—"

"I didn't get that from the serum," he says, and she stops mid-sentence.

"What?"

He flushes and rubs the back of his neck. "I—it—I mean, things changed in how, uh, the equipment functioned, but not—not the size of it."

Peggy narrows her eyes. "You mean to tell me, Mr. Rogers, that you were walking around a ninety-pound little beanpole with _that_ in your trousers?"

Steve grins bashfully. "Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Rogers. Would you like me to bring you a nightgown?"

"Absolutely not, Mr. Rogers," she says imperiously. "Come here and keep me warm." Peggy pats the bed next to her, and Steve yanks his underwear back on before crawling up and wrapping one thick arm around her waist, head planted firmly on her chest.

"Will this do, Mrs. Rogers?"

"It will, thank you," she says, and rests her chin atop his head. "We needn't get up extremely early."

"Mmm," he says, already half-asleep as he pulls the blanket at the foot of the bed up with a knee and covers them both. "I love you."

Peggy's about to return the sentiment when she realizes she's _never actually said it to him_ : her throat seizes up. "Oh—Steve," she says, voice breaking, and he stirs enough to give her a concerned look, raising his head off her chest.

"What?"

"Nothing," she whispers, tears in her eyes. "I—I love you, my darling. So much. I just realized—I hadn't ever told you."

"Oh," he says, and smiles sleepily, pressing a kiss to her throat. "I knew. I always knew."

Then he falls asleep, head pillowed on her chest, while Peggy clings to him and prays, prays that she won't wake up, prays this is not a dream after all.

* * *

In the morning, he turns on the record player, and they dance: just the two of them in the living room as the warbling strains of Harry James fills the golden air.

_Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again, it's been a long, long time._

He kisses her, and she kisses him, and she thinks: _I will never be the same again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES!  
> -Lauren Bacall really did sit on a piano that Truman was playing at the National Press Club in DC, back when he was the Vice President: it was suggested by her agent and Truman had such a good time that his wife told him he wasn't allowed to play the piano in public ever again.  
> -Self-adhering sanitary pads weren't invented until the seventies and sanitary belts stopped being sold in the 1980s. Modess was a top-selling brand of "feminine napkin" that got started in the 20s, when Johnson & Johnson started selling "silent coupons" so you could go to the store, hand the clerk the coupon, and get your pads without ever having to speak to anyone about what you were buying "to avoid embarrassment". Then in the 50s they lunched one of the most successful advertising campaigns ever: they sold menstrual pads by taking glamour shots of models in ballgowns and putting "Modess... _because_ " underneath and nothing else. Sold like wildfire. Here's a link to a couple of examples, with earlier ads included for comparison https://ardnasselas.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/modess-hygiene-ads-1950s/
> 
> -At long last: 80% of this dang chapter is smut. Hope you're all satisfied, because something's coming around the corner...


	20. June 13, 1951

The summer shines through the windows, beating down on the neighborhood. It's a beautiful day: the lawns are green and fresh, the trees are rustling in the breeze, there isn't a cloud in the sky. It's the sort of day that's perfect for strolling to the grocery store, or sunning oneself by a pool.

At the moment, Peggy Carter is spending it with her head over the toilet in the bathroom, retching violently.

"You okay in there?" asks Steve, muffled from behind the closed door.

She raises her head and holds her hair back from her face. "Fine," she rasps. "Don't come in." Her mouth tastes of sour bile, and she goes for the cup at the sink, gargling and rinsing her mouth out: the nausea has subsided a little and she feels mostly relief. "I _knew_ those hot dogs were bad," she tells him, wiping her mouth on a towel.

"Yeah, I wasn't feeling too hot myself this morning, either," Steve says, sounding apologetic. "I think I'm immune to food poisoning, though, and you aren't. Anything, uh, coming out the other end?"

"We may be married, but there are some things my husband does _not_ need to know," says Peggy primly, checking her face in the mirror before she flushes the toilet and opens the door.

"Lesson learned. No more Coney Island food." He rubs the back of his neck, standing there in his undershirt. "What do you want to do today?"

"Lord," she says, leaning against the door and crossing her legs. "You're going to laugh at me."

"I will not," he says, grinning.

"I'd like to get a haircut," she tells him. "I'd just—I don't know, it seems that a bob is all the rage nowadays. Not _too_ short, you know—I feel the longer wave is going out of style."

"Short, huh?" asks Steve, eyeing her speculatively. "I think it'd be cute."

Peggy grins. "You probably think I'd look fetching shaved bald."

"So sue me."

"I also—" She hesitates. "I'd…I know I can't, but I'd love to pop into the office and just—"

"Peggy," he says gently. "You know we can't until we've got official confirmation that the MGB doesn't have a target on our backs anymore."

"I know," she says impatiently. "But that won't be until after the war's over, and heaven knows how long negotiations are going to take. I could call. They _did_ give us a codeword—"

Steve sighs. "We do get a paper, you know. The UN will be wrapping up any day now. CIA's scrubbed, SHIELD's scrubbed, over fifteen hundred Hydra agents have been arrested."

Yes, but only in intelligence circles. Peggy doesn't feel like arguing, and decides to change the subject. "Have we got any orange juice for breakfast?" she inquires, edging past him and heading to the kitchen. "Or any of those muffins you baked last week ?"

"Yeah, the muffins are in the breadbox," he says, following her like a large, eager-to-please dog into the kitchen. "You know Phillips would send word if anything happened at all and they needed you. Besides, the code is for emergencies only."

"That's just it," she says bitterly, opening the breadbox. "It just… it feels like right after the war, when all the men came home and expected us to just stand aside as they waltzed right in like they'd never left. I had been running operations in France and Germany, and I came home to do nothing for two years but make coffee and take messages. I just—it's been lovely, but it's been _months_ , and—I need to feel useful."

Steve shuffles his weight slightly. "I know the feeling," he says softly, and she knows he does: how could a man who had been rebuffed at every attempt to do something he knew would help his country _not_ understand?

"Was it like that in the future, too?" she asks, sipping at her juice and nibbling at the muffin. They're blueberry, and very good: Steve had baked them when Michael and Anna had come over for a surprise visit, and Anna had eaten almost as many blueberries as Steve had put into the batter.

"A little," he admits, leaning against the counter. "I woke up and they shelved me until they needed me, which—well, it wasn't too long. But after that… I just did my job. It wasn't enough, you know: and I didn't realize—well, anyway, I worked for people I shouldn't have, and got myself into more trouble than I should have."

"That sounds like you," she teases.

He smiles. "I guess I thought I was done fighting, but I think if the need arises, I could still—you know. Anyway." Steve waves a hand. "Forget about it. You go get a haircut if you feel up to it. Just don't come back bald."

"Got to keep you on your toes," she shoots back, smiling as she finishes her food and heads for the bedroom to get dressed.

* * *

Her usual salon down the street is open, and she walks in wearing her favorite day dress: taupe cotton with no frills or nonsense, pumps, her handbag over one arm. "Good morning, Rose," she says cheerfully to the receptionist.

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Rogers!" Rose is maybe nineteen, with platinum-blond waves and pinky-red lipstick. "Fancy seeing you here! You weren't due for a wash for another week!"

"No, I—well, I confess I decided I needed a new cut," Peggy says, smiling.

Rose beams thoughtlessly. "Ooh. What does your husband think?"

Peggy has to swallow down a sharp remark. "He's all for it. Should I go home and phone to make an appointment, or—"

"No, no, Doris will be right out. She's only got one client, and she's almost done. You can wait there!" Rose points to the sitting area, well-equipped with stacks of Vogue magazine and the Ladies' Home Journal. Peggy heads over and sits down, pretending to be engrossed in advertisements for Lysol and Kotex.

She could pop over to the office after this. Of course, an ordinary person wouldn't have the faintest idea where or when to find SHIELD headquarters, but perhaps she'd be able to use their secure line to call Phillips and just—just _ask_ if there was anything that needed doing. It isn’t as if she resents married life, especially not married life when _Steve Rogers_ , but the honeymoon period had to end at some point, and even he was starting to get restless. It had been nice enough taking evening walks and having the children across the street call her Missus Rogers and ask to climb the tree in the yard, but she still wants something… _more._

Could the pair of them actually _have_ an ordinary, settled life? Peggy frowns at an ad for Vanity Fair cigarettes. _Comes in Pink or Blue!_ Pink and blue, indeed. She's not even entirely sure that Steve and she can—well, there's been no stall whatsoever in her monthlies, and it's not for lack of trying, either. She's still feeling the slight ache from their last intimate moment: last night, bent over the bed, Steve' mouth fastened on her neck as he covered her with his body… Peggy banishes all thoughts of that from her mind: it won't do to be flustered in public. _We ought to have him tested, perhaps the Vita-Rays did something to his body._ Her own rebar accident in '47 hadn't damaged anything on her part, but to be safe, perhaps she ought to go see a doctor.

"Mrs. Rogers?" calls Doris, and Peggy, jarred out of her reverie, looks up to see Doris Abernathy's smiling dark face peering around a corner. "Come on back, ma'am. Lord, but ain't it a hot day."

"And only supposed to get hotter," says Peggy, making her way to the chair. "I hear the expected temperatures this summer are in the high eighties. My shoes'll melt to the sidewalk."

Doris laughs and settles the sheet around her neck. "My sister's family all lives in the South, and it's in the _nineties_ there. Tires sticking to the street and you could cook an egg on the walk. Thea would have me for a fool if she caught me complaining about high-eighties. It ain't too bad in England, I hear."

"Only if you like rain and the cold." Peggy grins at the woman's reflection in the mirror.

"I'll stay right here, then," says Doris, grinning back. "Now, what were you thinking of with your hair?"

"Oh—" Peggy fishes the clipping she had taken out of a magazine and hands it to her. "I thought perhaps just around my ears?"

"Mmm," says Doris, squinting. "Your face is a tad too strong for hair that short. Say I bring it to… here?" Her fingers tap a few inches below Peggy's jaw. "You can still curl it to make it shorter, or use the big rollers for some volume."

"Well, you're the expert," says Peggy eyeing herself dubiously. Her cheekbones and chin and nose are fairly strong, come to think of it. "I suppose you're right. Have at it."

Doris picks up the scissors and Peggy watches as chunks of dark hair go to the floor, drifting away, away, away.

* * *

An hour later, she's admiring her new reflection in the mirror. Her hair is smooth and shining, straight till the ends, where Doris had curled them a little into a gentle wave that brushes her chin and cheeks. "Lovely," she says, smiling. "It's exactly what I wanted." She pays and leaves a generous tip at the desk.

"Oh, and this is for you," says Rose, handing her a note, folded over.

"What?" says Peggy, confused, but Rose is already darting to the back with a broom to sweep the floor. Peggy opens the paper, and inside, someone's written with a fountain pen: _Alley 5 m._

It can't possibly be one of the agents who keep an eye on them: they never make contact at all. Peggy crumples the paper into her fist. It could be a trap, but she always carries a small pistol in the garter holster that Ana Jarvis had made her, so she keeps one hand down and hurries out to the sidewalk, slipping into the alley.

It smells like hot garbage and stale water, and she looks around in confusion. Nobody is there, and she's about to turn around and just go home when a voice says, "Carter."

From there, it's pure instinct: she unholsters the gun, turns around, and finds herself aiming directly between Howard Stark's eyes.

"Jesus," he says. "I thought you were Audrey Hepburn from the back. New haircut?"

"Ha, ha," she says dryly, holstering the gun. "What do you want?"

"Jarvis is parked around back," he says, pointing. "Come on."

"You have to tell me in the car?" She trails him to the car, and slides into the back seat. "Good morning, Mr. Jarvis," she says, nodding at the butler, who nods back.

"Mrs. Rogers. Forgive the sudden contact—"

She shakes her head. "No, no, it's quite welcome. I can't stay long, however; my husband's expecting me."

"We'll make it quick." Howard turns to face her. "The Cold War's going to be officially over in two days, and you didn't hear that from me. Phillips is running himself into the ground, but it appears—for the _moment_ —that you may be able to resume your duties as Director of SHIELD in a few short weeks."

Peggy gasps aloud. "You're joking. Really?"

"He certainly is not, Mrs. Rogers," says Jarvis. "The Soviet Union is on its way to collapse, though you won't see that in the papers."

"The MGB?"

"Dissolved. Powerless. No idea about Hydra activities overseas, but we'll assume it's safe here in the States until we find out differently. We've got a few agents on it."

She frowns. "And—what about the Red Room?"

"We have no intel on that," says Howard. "That was—well, it's apparently so secret that everyone's denying it exists."

"I don't suppose you managed to find any of their super-serum in the past eight months," she says.

Howard sighs. "No dice. The UN demanded that the USSR turn over the entire collection of tech they'd invented and it wasn't there. It might have all been destroyed. We _did_ get some plans for a satellite, however."

"Well, you certainly didn't come to tell me I was rehired," she tells him. "What else?"

He hesitates. "First of all, you and Steve were right about Hydra scientists infiltrating both sides. Operation Osoaviakhim—that was the Soviet answer to Paperclip, and German scientists allied with Hydra made their way over. That may have been how Michael ended up in Russia—anyway, we don't know, there's not a lot of paperwork."

"And second of all?"

Howard sighs. "Second of all, Agent Barnes has gotten a few strange phone calls and he thinks it might be a good idea if you were to come back."

"Strange—what?"

"He says someone keeps dialing his office phone and he never hears anything on the other line. We have no idea where the calls are coming from. Tried to trace them, but it was no good."

Peggy frowns. "Like when you were getting odd calls? You thought it was from the CIA, remember?"

"Yes. Might be Hydra. He never speaks to the person calling, just waits, and they hang up in a few seconds."

"What on earth does he think I can do about it?"

Howard rubs his eyes. "We've put an extra security detail on his apartment, but he's insisting that it's an intimidation tactic that'll escalate until—well, he seems to think it's very possible that Hydra might try to take him back."

Peggy's mouth falls open. "Without the arm?"

"Possibly. They could make another for all we know. He wants both you and Steve back, as soon as you can be."

Peggy looks out the window at the street as they glide along. Finally. _Back to work!_ "When can I expect word for our official return?"

"Soon, I think. Keep your eyes open and let Steve know, too."

"Do we have to change our names back?" Peggy thinks of their old papers, all stuffed into a hidey-hole beneath the floorboards in the basement.

"Don't bother. Steve's going to be the worst-kept secret at SHIELD, anyway." He grins as they pull up alongside the house. "And here's your stop."

"Do give Mrs. Jarvis my love," says Peggy, climbing out.

"I shall, thank you," says Jarvis, and Howard waves before they drive away. Peggy stands for a moment on the sidewalk and takes a few breaths before heading up the walk to the porch and in the front door.

"Steve? I'm back," she calls, the screen door banging shut. There's no answer, and she frowns: is he in the back garden? "Darling, are you home?" she calls louder, reaching for her pistol anyway. She holds it down to point at the floor, toeing off her pumps and edging into the house in her stocking feet. Something's wrong: the table is half-set for lunch, and as she comes into the kitchen, she sees a shattered plate on the floor.

Her eyes take in the rest: a towel thrown aside, a smear of blood on the linoleum—and the back door, a gaping hole through the screen, dented, hanging off one hinge.

There's no time to react or think or cry or any of that; there isn't any point searching the rest of the house either when every moment is valuable time. Peggy goes to the phone and dials the number she's been saving, and when the junior agent on the other end picks up, she says exactly five words.

"Codeword, Camellia. _He's been taken_."

After that, she staggers to the kitchen sink and promptly gets sick.

* * *

"Shit, shit, _shit_ ," says Bucky, pacing madly in her old office as Peggy walks in, flanked by two agents. "Carter, I'm so sorry—"

She can't even be upset that he's forgotten to use her married name. "We need to find out where he _is_ ," she says, hands on the desk. "We need to find out now. _Now_."

He leans across the desk, pointing at the map of their neighborhood. "As soon as you called I got our men on it. It looks like the detail at Larch and 14th was taken out. Someone found their bodies in the car. Whoever they were got in and out in less than five minutes, because the other detail did their scheduled drive-past and caught you coming out of the house, and they'd reported seeing you pull up with Howard."

"It's Hydra," says Peggy, frozen. "It has to be. It can't be anyone else. Nobody knew his identity—"

Bucky sags into his chair, looking gray. "No, one person did."

"Who?" she demands.

He looks like he might be sick. "Yelena Belova. I—I called him Steve in front of her. I don't know—I don't know what happened to her, but if she told someone his name—"

"That doesn't explain how on earth they tracked him to that address," Peggy snaps. "We had papers—"

"Howard bought the house," Bucky says, still looking green. "It could have been traced through public records."

She sits down heavily. "But—I don't understand the motive—"

"Agent Barnes. Package for you." A runner pokes his head through the door and hands Bucky a padded envelope.

"From who?" asks Peggy immediately.

The kid gapes. "Uh, I don't know, Director. There's no return address—"

"Don't open that," Peggy orders Bucky, turning on him. "Call Howard into the lab as soon as you can and have him open it. For all we know it could be a bomb, and I'm not taking any chances between Steve's disappearance and the strange phone calls."

"You got it," says Bucky, looking grim as he goes for the phone with his one hand and nods at the courier. "Jim, get that into the lab now. Carter—what do you want to do?"

About bloody time someone asked her. "Right. I'm meeting Howard in the lab to open our mysterious package. I want you to call every airport in a twenty mile radius and alert them to the situation; if they're Hydra they may attempt to leave the country with him. Ports, too. Get the Arlington police on the line and see if anyone saw anything at all in the area. They can't have just disappeared."

"What do you want me to tell the airport to look for?" Bucky's already dialing, holding the phone under his chin.

"At least four men, probably," says Peggy. "Possibly five, possibly Russian. Large men. There were signs of a struggle in the house. I can't imagine who else could have taken down Steve Rogers. Get them alerted as soon as possible."

* * *

Steve comes to his senses as a bucket of freezing water is dumped over his head, soaking him from head to toe. As usual, he catalogues injuries: contusion to his left eye, split lip, busted nose. _Typical afternoon in Brooklyn_ , he thinks, and blinks water out of his good eye.

"Good. You're awake." Someone's speaking, female: low, soft, steady. He knows the voice as well as his own, and squints as the speaker steps into the light, the bare bulb overhead shining off waves of black hair.

It's a weird moment where he doesn't recognize her, and then he does. "Hi, Natasha. Like the new hair."

A leather-shoed foot drives into his gut for that, and he groans, fighting the urge to vomit as her face swings in close to his. She looks livid, and she's dressed for a Saturday morning in the park: gingham blouse, slacks, Oxfords. "Don't call me that," she spits, and drops a cloth onto the ground.

"Did you chloroform me?" he manages. "You remember me, don't you?"

"I've never met you in my life," she says coolly, and crosses to an impromptu little setup on a table with a radio, a telephone, and a long-range transmitter.

"You don't remember," he says, and looks around as she picks up the receiver. They're alone in some kind of abandoned warehouse, or maybe a storage shed. He can smell salt water nearby, and the reek of low tide: they must be on the coast, or near the Potomac. "That's okay. What—what do you want me to call you?" _I know you're in there,_ he thinks silently.

"You call me nothing," she says, and speaks into the receiver. " _Kapitan byl izvlechen zhivym. V ozhidanii dal'neyshikh zakazov._ "

"Nat, then," he says, trying to work at the bonds on his wrists. They're steel-reinforced, and cut into his skin. "Right? Natasha Romanoff?"

"Natalia," she corrects, and glares at him as if it's his fault.

"Did you _have_ to break my good dishes?"

Natalia's eyes narrow. "You were fighting back. Damage is a typical side effect of close-quarters combat. You are not built for agility like I am. That is a detriment to your style."

"Yes, which is how you pinned me with your legs and knocked me out," he says. "Good move. I remember when you taught it to me."

She gives him a sharp little sidelong glance. "I never taught you anything," she spits.

Steve shrugs as well as he can. "No, you haven't. You haven't done it yet."

"You think you're clever, don't you?" Natalia crosses over to pick up a set of what look like a prototype of the magnetically-locked cuffs that the Strike team had attempted to trap him with in 2014, and Steve stiffens a little.

"Not very," he admits. "Why's the USSR sending you after me?"

"I am not here on the orders of the USSR," she says coldly, eyeing him. "Be silent or I'll knock your teeth out."

Steve knows her well enough to know she'll probably do just that, so he sits in silence, waiting. Natalia shifts her weight, looks at the phone/radio setup (probably waiting for further instructions) and stalks back and forth for a little, eyeing him and looking at the floor and muttering to herself.

It takes about ten minutes for her to speak again. "Where's the other one?"

Steve's brows meet in the middle. "Other one what?"

She seems agitated. "The man. The other man. The one you called Bucky. I shot him, didn't I?"

"You did," he confirms.

"Is he—" Natalia looks torn. "Is he alive?"

Steve can't stop the derision bubbling up in his throat. After all, his face is aching. "Why do you care? You shot him."

"I don't know," Natalia says, and looks as if she's trying to see something far away. "It was… important." She blinks out of it and glares at him. "I have a mission to complete."

"Who are you working for?"

Steve really shouldn't have been surprised, but he's taken off guard all the same when Natalia's fist finds a home in his gut, then another blow lands on his bloody, weeping nose. "You do _not_ ask the questions here!" she spits.

 _God, I'm too old for this._ "You know who I am," he manages. "You called me—"

"What, _Kapitan_? Yes, I know who you are. You're my target."

"Natalia," he says. "What happened to Yelena Belova?"

She blinks. "Who?"

"Oh, come on. Blond, worked in the Red Room with you." If he can just get his thumb dislocated, he'll have one hand free. "She never made it out."

Natalia's eyes seem to swim off again, and he takes advantage of her confusion to grit his teeth and pull, hard. "She…set a fire. I think. I don't—" Her green eyes snap back to his, accusing. "How do you know about Yelena?"

"We've met," he says simply, and wriggles his right wrist just a little more.

"Don't think I'll sit here and listen to your—"

With a sickening pop, his thumb goes out of its socket, and he wrenches his hand free, dodges her initial strike at him, breaks the arms of the chair he's sitting in, and brings himself up to stand, evading her kicks and punches as if they're sparring. He crouches to avoid a high kick, and his left hand curls around a pipe on the floor. He brings it up and smashes her across the chest with it as she's gearing up for another attack, sending her to the ground, gasping for air. "Who're you working for?" he asks, pinning her down, the pipe across her throat lightly, but with the promise of quite a good amount of pressure behind it.

"I don't—I don't know," Natalia gasps, furiously struggling. "I—was told to report—don't know any names, _please_ —"

"Why do they want me?"

"I don't know," she sobs, and that's a new reaction. "Don't know, no, no, _no_ —"

"Natalia—"

"Don't put me in the chair," she sobs, eyes not quite seeing him. "Don't, I promise, I swear I won't tell—"

"Shh," he says, easing up on the pressure a little. "You're not going to be wiped."

"Yes, I am," she gasps, rigid and terrified. "Always. Every—every mission—"

Steve takes that in. "You remember being wiped every mission?"

"It doesn't—work, sometimes—all the way, not completely, please, don't put me back in the _chair_ —"

"Do you know the purpose of this mission?"

Natalia's eyes find his. " _Sverkhchelovec_ ," she stammers. "That's all I know, I knew, I knew and they wiped me, _please_ —"

"SHIELD can help you," he says.

"Nobody can help me," she whispers. "I was—the perfect one, always. I never break. I am—I am marble—" She blinks, tears in her eyes. "I don't know what I'm doing. I dreamed I found you in the forest. You and your Bucky. I dreamed I took my soul from my chest and hid it in the forest..."

Steve snatches up the chloroform cloth. "You'll dream again," he says. "Just remember. When you decide to defect, ask for Barnes or Johnson. You will be helped."

"No—" she starts, looking outraged, and he crams the cloth across her face and waits until her struggling ceases and she's asleep.

He leaves her on the floor, splayed out in her civilian clothing, but before he goes he breaks the radio setup. Let them think there was a struggle. They might go easier on her.

Steve makes it to the doors of the warehouse and squints out into the daylight. He's definitely somewhere near the Potomac, judging by the smell, but he has no idea what side of the river he's on. It looks like an industrial park or a power plant, so he starts walking, walking away from Natalia and the reminder of the future he's left behind.

After a moment, he begins to run.

* * *

"No sign of him yet," says Barnes, meeting Peggy in the hallway on their way down to Howard's lab. It had taken a full ten minutes for Jarvis to get home and pick up the phone, and Peggy privately thought that perhaps he ought to invent some sort of immediate alert system that would tell him to get his backside home already and _pick up the phone._ "Airports haven't reported anything suspicious."

"That's all right," she says aloud, trying to keep her mind focused. "Someone's got to have seen him at some point. We've left Grabeski and O'Malley in charge of the phones. You said Phillips is—"

"Still on Capitol Hill," says Barnes. He looks tired, with circles under his eyes and his tie loosened, but at least he's had a proper haircut. "We're on our own for this one."

"Steve could be anywhere, but I'm sure he hasn't left the country." Peggy walks into the lab first, Bucky behind her. "Oh, hello, Howard."

"Put these on," he says, handing them both protective goggles. "I've gone over the package with a couple of scans and a Geiger counter, and there doesn't seem to be any electric wiring or radiation inside, so we can rule out a bomb. No idea who mailed it, either, but it looks like it was mailed from Russia—the stamps are Russian, anyway."

"What else could it be?" asks Bucky, strapping the goggles on one-handed.

"Anthrax. Smallpox. Any number of things. Here." Stark hands them both elbow-length rubber gloves, and they put them on. "All right. Easy does it. We'll open it without touching it."

They stand behind him, watching anxiously as he cuts the package open with small, careful clips, then reaches in with the tongs, moving as if he's afraid the thing might still explode. He frowns, and pulls the tongs back out, and in the grip of the forceps is a…paper-wrapped item, about the length of Peggy's finger.

"What on earth is that?" she asks.

"I have no idea," says Howard, and sets the bundle down on the table, peeling back the layers of brown paper. Inch by inch, the item is revealed, and Peggy's eyes widen in shock.

"Is that…" She trails off, unable to finish.

"It looks like it," says Howard grimly, staring at the thing. "And I hate to say it, but I think I may know why someone nabbed Steve."

* * *

Steve has no idea where he is.

He used to pride himself on being such a good tactician, on his survival skills: he'd been able to find any direction on the compass in the middle of the night after a paratrooper drop in a foreign country. Now, he's on a dirt road in the middle of God Knows Where and he can't find a highway. He's been walking for hours, and the sun is getting low; he's missing a shoe and his clothes are torn and blood-stained. His whole face throbs as it knits itself together four times faster than the average man, but something else is off: his coordination is strange and his thoughts keep wobbling.

He's hungry. He never got to eat lunch: it had still been in the refrigerator waiting for him to make it when Natasha—Natalia—had knocked on the back door. He'd thought she was a new neighbor. Black hair, blue jeans. He hadn't even thought to pick up the Colt that was kept in the drawer by the door.

_God, I'm stupid._

Maybe she'd regained consciousness by now. Maybe she was tracking him. Maybe the people she was working for were trying to find him. Were they MGB? Something else? Something doesn't feel right: it's like his brain is too slow for his body.

Steve looks down at his arms. Funny; he doesn't remember having rolled up his left sleeve to the elbow. There's no speck of blood to mark a pinprick or a needle, but then there wouldn't be, not with his healing. _I should have noticed._ Why do his feet feel like they're slogging through molasses?

"I've been drugged," he says aloud, and drags his feet to keep moving. He doesn't even know what time it is, because his arms are too heavy to lift and check his watch. _Keep moving. Keep moving._ Peggy's going to be furious if he's late getting home.

Ten more feet, and his knees give out. He collapses to the ground, trying to stay awake. _Nat drugged me._ Steve can't help but feel exasperated about it, more like a tired parent than a frightened victim. _Guess she learned from last time._

A van rolls up, the black tires crunching on the dirt, and they look as if they're a thousand miles away. Steve tries to speak, but he can't make words come out of his mouth, and after that he's being lifted and put into the van by silent men he can't see the faces of—but he's just so tired and he wants to sleep, and being captured doesn't seem to matter anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES!  
> -haha you THOUGHT they'd be settling down. PSYCH.   
> -yes, you could get Vanity Fair cigarette For Ladies in Pastel Pink or Baby Blue. The 1950s was an incredible time.  
> -Operation Osoaviakhim was an absolutely real thing.  
> -feel free to shout at me on my twitter @urulokid !


	21. June 14, 1951

"The tests are back," says Howard, setting a file box onto his immaculate lab table.

"And?" demands Bucky, looking just as sleep-deprived as Howard. They've slept in the lab, refusing to let the item Bucky's been mailed out of their sight: Peggy too—she's standing close at hand, silent and observing.

"It's exactly what we thought," Howard tells him. "Super-soldier serum." He slides the item over to Bucky, who takes it gingerly between his thumb and finger and lifts it to the light: a glass vial, full of a pale blue liquid substance. "That's just enough to make one more semi-super soldier, though whoever he is, he won't be quite like Steve—they're missing some key ingredients in the amino acids, the hormonal—"

"This must be what they used on some of the women in the Red Room," says Peggy numbly. "My God. We're in possession of part of the USSR's _sverkhchelovec_ program."

"Possibly," allows Howard. "The bigger question is why would someone mail this to Barnes?"

"There wasn't anything inside?" asks Bucky, still staring at the serum.

"Nothing except the paper the vial was wrapped in." Howard hands Bucky the brown paper. "I haven't tested it, but—"

"I'll take a look," says Bucky firmly, and flattens out the paper, examining it every which way. Peggy watches, and he must see something he likes, because he lifts the paper, looks through it, then goes over to one of Howard's high-intensity examination lamps and holds the paper close to the bulb.

"Hey!" protests Howard. "That's—"

Bucky ignores him and knocks the shade off the bulb with his hand before repositioning the paper, and Peggy draws closer out of sheer curiosity.

"Look," she says quickly to Howard. Browned, faded Cyrillic characters are appearing on the paper: _Джеймс. Это была моя миссия._ Peggy reads it aloud. " _Dzheyms. Eto byla moya missiya_."

"I think I know who sent this to me," says Bucky, looking pale. "That—that Black Widow, one of the Red room girls—"

"Which one? Yelena?" Peggy snatches up a notepad.

Bucky shakes his head. "No, not Yelena—Natalia. Red hair, the one who shot me. She—Steve recognized her and wouldn't let me kill her in Russia."

Peggy's pen pauses. "What do you mean, he recognized her?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. Said she didn't know him, but he knew her. I figured maybe he knew her from wherever he came from, you know—anyway, I know she heard Anna call me James. But— _it was my mission_? I don't follow that."

"An apology for shooting you, maybe?" Peggy suggests.

"Hell of an apology," says Howard. His lab phone goes off and he sighs. "Give me a second."

Peggy turns on Barnes. "When was the package posted?"

He glances at the postage. "Looks like a month ago. Why?"

She gnaws her lip. "We know that people who are—well, under Hydra's control, human weapons like you had been—we know they're wiped, and we know that the wipes are unpredictable and don't always work, because the electroshock isn't refined enough to be perfectly effective every time. Michael's told me about Yelena. If this other woman—Natalia, if she was having second thoughts and they found out…"

Bucky frowns. "You think she mailed me this and got caught?"

"It's possible. Anything is. It could also be a trap."

Howard comes back. "That was Washington-Virginia. They said they just spotted a suspicious vehicle on the tarmac—"

"We have to go," demands Peggy. " _Now._ "

"It's been a day. We don't even know if this is what we're looking for," Bucky says. "If we leave now and someone else calls in with a better lead—"

"That's precisely what they'd _want_ you to think," Peggy snaps.

Howard shakes his head. "They said it was a van unloading what looked like a body bag. Four people, three men and one woman, normal clothing, heading for a private jet, and they're stalling them now—"

"A body bag," echoes Peggy. Nausea rises in her throat at the idea of Steve, dead and being packed away to god-know where. "We need to _go_."

"Why the hell would they want Steve?" Bucky's already going for the door at the look on her face.

"Howard, stay here. Get our radar set up, and answer your radio if we call," she shoots at him, and races after Barnes. "I assume they… they can likely harvest the serum from his blood, or—or his spinal fluid, perhaps, his bone marrow—" Her gorge rises, and she fights to not be sick. "Just—let's get to the airport."

* * *

Edwin Jarvis is more than happy to offer a lift, and they streak off to Washington-Virginia twenty over the speed limit in the Rolls-Royce.

"Once we get there," says Peggy to Bucky as she checks her radio, "I'll engage. You stay back; Steve will never forgive me if I get you killed."

"Yeah," says Bucky, "and he'd never forgive me if I got _you_ killed."

"Barnes," she tells him gently. "You can't load and fire a weapon."

"Oh, really. Then why'd they issue me one?"

"Bucky—"

He stares at her. "Hand me your sidearm," he says, and it's not up for debate. Peggy slips her pistol out of her garter-holster, and Bucky examines it, unloads it by pressing the slide against his side, then slides it back in, using his chest for leverage. "Loaded. I can fire it, too. But I'm not going to do that to poor Mr. Jarvis here."

"Appreciated, Mr. Barnes," says Jarvis politely, eyeing them both in the rear view mirror.

"All right," mutters Peggy. "I'm sorry. Come with me and cover me, then, but for heaven's sake, watch yourself."

"Always do," he tells her, and hands her pistol back. "Where the hell would they even take him?"

"If they're Hydra, it could be any country in the Eastern Bloc," she says, looking out the window.  "We'd have to get a full list from the United Nations on possible countries, and we don't even have any intelligence on which countries Hydra's infiltrated—the only lead we've got is this Natalia, I assume that's the woman with them, and you say she's Russian." Peggy can't look at him, can't sit still: her fingers keep moving and she can't stop them. "Maybe she's contracting out. Or the Red Room is contracting her out. Maybe—"

"Peggy," says Barnes gently, and he reaches over with his hand to cover hers. "He's gonna be fine. He's Steve Rogers."

"Lord," she says, fighting tears as they pull up to the airport. There are already flashing lights, blue and red, from police cars parked outside. "All right, let's go. Eyes open."

They tumble out and race for the tarmac, flashing their badges on the way past police shouting for them to stop—there's a massive expanse of asphalt stretching out before them as they round the side of the terminal, and Peggy sees the dead men on the ground before she sees the jet, streaking down the runway toward them in preparation for takeoff.

She pulls her sidearm and fires at the plane without thinking, stalking straight forward as the engines whine closer and closer. _Bang, bang, bang_ : her shots ricochet off the steel, and she's facing down a whirring propeller with a pistol holding one round. She aims.

Behind her, a single shot goes off, and the next thing she knows she's being slammed to the ground in a one-armed football tackle, Bucky Barnes covering her ears and head as the propeller screams directly overhead and the plane lifts off, wheels retracting as it soars into the sky.

Peggy throws him off her. "I _had them!_ " she screams, irate.

"You wasted all your shots," he says, not even moving from his position on the asphalt as he sits up. "You got sloppy. I fired through the windshield. They won't be able to get high enough to lose oxygen, which means we can track them now on radar."

She can't even answer before her radio crackles. " _Peg?"_

One yank and the thing's off her belt. "What?" she demands into the speaker.

" _I got a lock on their position. Looks like they're heading south and flying low.  I've alerted Phillips, and he's said that Langley can have a couple of F-86s scrambled and out in ten minutes to shoot down the—"_

"We are not," says Peggy with some difficulty, "shooting anything down. My husband is on that plane."

There's a hesitation, and she knows what he's going to say next. " _Peggy. If the Soviets get Captain America—if they do to him what they did to Barnes, if they reverse-engineer more serum out of his blood—we're going to lose this war."_

"I don't care," she says, tears spilling down her cheeks as she grips the radio with both hands, shaking. "I don't _care_ , do you hear me? I am _not_ going to _lose him again_ —"

" _They'll be leaving American airspace in four hours, Peggy. We're the three directors of SHIELD, so we have to make a unanimous decision."_ Howard sounds exhausted. " _Can you imagine a biological weapon engineered from his body in the hands of the Soviets?"_

"I suppose both you and Phillips are voting to shoot him down, then," she snarls. "How _dare_ you—"

" _You know how important that vial of his blood was,"_ he snaps, crackling over the radio. " _You know what Brannis and Leviathan were willing to sacrifice to get it. How much more do you think the Soviet Union will?"_

Bucky takes the radio out of her hands as she shakes, too angry to speak. "Howard. Tell Phillips it's a better idea to track the plane and see where it goes. I put a hole in the windshield, so they won't be able to get very high. Once we figure out where they've gone, we can get a team together and extract Rogers."

" _We won't have much time,"_ says Howard slowly, but he sounds as if he's considering it. " _I'll let him know, but you two need to come up with a plan as soon as possible."_

The radio crackles, and Peggy stares at Barnes, then at the rapidly fading dot in the afternoon sky, flying low over the Potomac. _Oh God,_ she thinks numbly. The one thing that had ever been just as important to her as her job had ever been is hurtling further away with every second, and there is nothing she can do to stop it or slow it down. She's never felt so helpless in her life.

No, actually, she _has_ felt this helpless before. In 1944, sitting at a radio in the bowels of a Hydra base, begging him to come back, come _back, just turn the plane around_ —

"Carter," says Barnes, and she finds his face with some difficulty, trying to see past the veil of tears that blur her vision. "It's gonna be okay."

"We have to—we should—" She gets to her feet, ignoring the scraped knee she got when he bowled her over into the tarmac. "We ought to get back to the Playground as soon as possible and—and form a plan. The—the—we've thought perhaps Peru has Hydra factions, or possibly—possibly—Argentina, I know plenty of Nazis made it to—"

"Peggy," Bucky says, a little more gently. "We can discuss it in the car. C'mon."

"Right," she says, still numb, and stumbles after him across the blacktop, letting him handle the police, who aren't happy that their orders weren't followed. The three dead men have been covered in sheets, and Peggy views them with a sort of dispassionate sadness: it isn't as if she doesn't care, but it feels so much as if she's in a great fog that she cannot bring herself to care about anything other than Steve.

They get back into the car. She sits silently, and when Jarvis asks where to go she bursts into tears, laying her head on Bucky's shoulder as he awkwardly pats her with his arm and tells Jarvis: _The Playground. We have work to do._

* * *

"He's awake."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. His eyes are moving. Look."

Steve cracks his eyelids. There are blurs of light and dark, and upon focusing his eyes he can make out that the dark blurs are bodies and walls, the light blurs faces. He's damp and the room reeks of mildew, the air humid and cloying. The scent of pine fills the air.   _I was in Virginia. This isn't Virginia._

A woman—Natasha?—Natalia—leans over, and he realizes he's on his back, strapped to a table with those magnetic cuffs, unable to move even if he was at full capacity. A strap crosses his forehead, and there's a bright light shining from somewhere that seems very far away. "Good evening, _Kapitan_ ," she says smoothly. "Enjoy your flight?"

"Flight?" he echoes, disoriented. He doesn't remember flying. He can't remember much of anything before now, come to think of it, aside from a scuffle in a kitchen— _his_ kitchen.

"You used too much of your venom," says one of the men. "You overreach yourself, little spider."

"I gave him the right amount," she says, sounding bored. "I did it to myself before, to make sure."

 _Widow's Bites._ Steve struggles to make sense out of the molasses of his brain: there are two Natashas: one is here and the other is gone, one uses poison and the other uses electric-blue bolts to stun. One Natasha had red hair, one has dyed hers black, and both women spin around his mind until he can't tell one from the other.

The man doesn't sound convinced, or maybe it's another man. "The Americans will be following us."

Natalia sounds annoyed. "Of course they will. They won't be able to get here quickly: there are too many hoops to jump through. By the time the Defense Department allows any of those fools to touch foot on the ground in this country, you'll be long gone with what you need."

"And your people will have your payment," says one of the men. There is a distant sound, high-pitched whirring that reminds Steve of something, but he can't place what it is. "I must say, I am impressed with your work, Widow."

"You aren't the first." A hand trails down his cheek and to his throat, and Steve can only lie there as she unbuttons his shirt. "Tell me, _Kapitan_ ," she says softly, face peering at his so close and yet so far away. "Do you feel the pain of ordinary men?"

He can't answer. He's finally placed the sound: a drill.

"Because I think, if you are unlike me, and do not… you will."

* * *

Peggy nearly breaks the door down on her way to the lab, Bucky in hot pursuit. Howard almost falls off his stool and races to meet her.

"Peg—I'm sorry about th—"

She hauls one fist back and punches him so hard in the face he staggers backward and into a table, and Bucky lets out a low whistle. "That," she snarls, "is for being willing to _shoot down my husband_."

Howard clutches his face. "You broke my nose!" he chokes out past blood.

"I'm sure you'll be able to afford a new one."

Howard looks at Bucky in supplication and Bucky shrugs. "What? I woulda punched you too if I had my arm back."

"We have a plan," says Peggy, arms crossed as Howard gets up and holds a handkerchief to his nose. "It's the only thing I can think of that won't get us tied up in red tape with the United Nations and the Department of Defense."

"What is it?" Howard asks through the fabric.

"Where are they?" Bucky crosses to the radar screen and peers at it.

Above the hanky, Howard's eyebrows meet. "Lost track of them over the Gulf, midway between Cuba and Miami. They seemed to be on a trajectory to land near Havana."

Peggy crosses over to the atlas on the table and opens it, finding Cuba. "They can't have landed near Havana," she says. "The country is our ally. It must have been somewhere more remote, somewhere…" She slips her finger down to the Isle of Pines, south of the main island, and taps it. "Here. Easy for a jet to get in and out, we know there are a few rudimentary airstrips, and it's mostly forest."

"And there's a prison there," says Howard, a light going on in his eyes. "Modelo Prison. I toured it on my last trip to Peru."

"I'm calling Phillips," Peggy informs him. "We'll get in touch with someone in La Habana Province and get them to clear us for a trip to the island."

"Peggy—" Barnes catches her by the elbow on her way out. "We can't go in there. Not even with our best agents."

"We have you—"

He sighs. "I'm flattered, but look. I have one arm. No getting around that. I'm—well, I'm not exactly in top fighting condition, and you look a little green around the gills. Even Jones—he's our best guy for hand to hand—he's not gonna be able to win a fight against a super-serumed Black Widow from the Red Room."

Likely, he wouldn't even win a fight against a non-serumed Widow. Peggy remembers Dottie Underwood vividly: able to survive almost anything and frighteningly fearless. "We've got to do it anyway," she insists stubbornly. "We don't have a choice. We could petition the CIA for Special Operations units, but by then it would be too late."

"Then what do you propose we _do_?"

"I don't _knowI"_ She yanks her elbow out of his hand. "The objective is to extract Steve. If I die doing it, then—"

"That ain't a sacrifice I'm willing to make," says Bucky, eyes hard. "We don't have a single person able to go up against that woman hand-to-hand. Steve was the only one who could have come out of that alive."

"No," says Howard, "but… we do have a vial of Russian knockoff super-soldier serum."

The silence is heavy in the lab as they all look at each other. "You can't mean we ought to inject Jones with the stuff," says Peggy.

"That's not who I had in mind, no," mutters Howard.

Bucky looks at him incredulously. "You mean—you want to give it to _Peggy_? Stark, you don't even know what this stuff does or how they administered it—"

"It's all we have," says Peggy numbly. "It's the only advantage we have, and Natalia—she gave it to you, it must have been for a reason. Yes. I'll do it."

Bucky scoffs. "I trust Natalia about as far as I can throw her—"

"And do you think I trusted you any less after _you_ shot _me_ in Russia?" she demands, and for once Bucky has nothing to say. "If Steve—if he trusted her, or he will, or he has—she must be a good person. And I have no right to question Steve Rogers' judgment. I trusted his judgment with you, and look how you turned out."

"That's different," mumbles Bucky, but doesn't argue.

"I can—I can have something set up in half an hour," says Howard, wheels turning behind his eyes. "Peg, get to medical and get a full checkup. I want to be able to test your strength and your agility and everything before and after."

"We don't have women's PT gear here," says Peggy blankly, her mind going in circles. "My old set is at the house."

"You can borrow mine," says Bucky. "C'mon."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Peggy's been weighed, measured, tested, asked to do chin-ups and push-ups and sit-ups and run on a treadmill with an oxygen mask on her face, given penicillin and an enormous injection of vitamins, and now she's sitting patiently in the same chair Bucky had sat in for his arm removal, wearing his PT shirt and a pair of shorts that are slightly too big, with her belly turning flops.

"Do you think you could be pregnant?" one of the nurses had asked as a matter of routine, and Peggy had shaken her head. Her next cycle was due to start any day now, but they had taken a urine sample anyway to be sure: results to be determined at a later date.

 _Useless routine_ , she thought bitterly. She was sure Steve couldn't father children after eight months of nothing, and while that was a small relief on one hand, it was also a bit… sad, on the other. She would have liked a child or two with Steve's eyes and smile, and she'd told him as such. Perhaps Anna was all in the way of a child she would ever have, and that was all right: she would be the most doting aunt in the States.

"They sterilize the women now," Michael had told her, on his last visit. "In the Red Room. Yelena and I—we were very lucky to have Anna. She managed to hide it for months…" Likely the sterilization was a safeguard against the distraction of children, though Peggy was sure none of the men in the MGB were similarly treated, and wasn't _that_ just peachy?

"All right," says Howard, bringing her out of her thoughts as he hurries over with a tray in his gloved hands. Barnes hovers over his shoulder, looking worried. "We have vita radiation, but it won't be anything like the setup I had for Rogers."

"Please do not tell me that you're using nitramene for the radiation," Peggy says tightly.

"Okay. I won't tell you. Do me a favor and don't make any sudden movements." He lifts the cover off the tray and a golden glow bathes his face as he sets it down slowly on the rolling cart next to her. "We'll set it up in the shower. You'll absorb it as the serum enters your body, and the radiation will encourage the right growth and change."

"Standing in the shower," she repeats.

"It won't be ideal, but it'll be as good as it gets. The shower's lined with lead in case of radiation poisoning, so the nitramene—I mean, the vita radiation—it should penetrate you and not the room."

"This had better work," she mutters. "All right."

Howard hurries off to the shower, pushing the cart. "Get her prepped, Carrie."

Nurse Carol Garcia steps in wearing an apron and gloves, her hair done up in a net, and nods at her. "You ready, Director?"

"As ready as I shall ever be, I expect," she says, and looks up as Barnes crosses over, sitting by her side and putting his hand on her shoulder. "How much is it going to hurt?" she asks quietly as Carol readies the injections: six tiny blue syringes.

"Like the devil," he says, squeezing her. "But you'll be okay."

"I certainly hope so, because if I turn into whatever Johann Schmidt was, I will not be pleased."

"Hell of a party trick, though," he deadpans. "Not too bad. Aside from the megalomania and the world domination plots."

"Never speak again," she tells him, and Carol injects her: two syringes in her arms, two in the meat of her thighs, two in her calves. They sting a little, but it isn't too bad, and Bucky helps her up and to the shower.

Halfway there, her limbs start to burn.

"Oh, God," she says through her teeth, and Bucky gets her into the cubicle, shuts the door, and Howard slaps on a pair of dark-lensed goggles and presses a switch atop a cobbled-together control he's made last-minute.

"Stay on your feet!" he shouts, looking every inch a mad scientist through the lead-infused glass. "Maximum irradiation!"

Golden light envelops Peggy, permeating her skin, her bones, her flesh. It burns. She screams as the light pours through her, burning her up, burning her body from within. How can she stand on her feet when her feet must be nothing but ash and carbon, eaten away in the terrible burning rays? Her body isn't _real_ anymore, doesn't feel solid: it's only something the light passes through, as transparent as a curtain of muslin on a summer day across a window.

Very far away, she can hear Barnes: _Peggy! Hold on!_

There is nothing to hold on to in the light, and she grits her teeth and screams, roaring out her pain as the rays soak into her and her body burns and burns and burns, something changing, something _moving_ : her eyes vibrating back and forth so that all she can see is a blur of white tile soaked in gold light.

Every nerve in her body feels as if it's swelling, bringing her up and up and up until she can't take it anymore, and just as she thinks she must end it or die, the light dims, and she collapses, a rush of adrenaline and dopamine flooding every nerve. It's like a wave cresting over her from head to toe, drowning her. Her teeth rattle. She's so cold, and sweat coats her body, but pure relief floods her as she takes in great gasps of air.

Barnes opens the door to the cubicle. "Peggy—"

The squeaking of the door startles her, and without thinking she's on her feet, both hands tied into knots in Barnes' shirt. "Don't," she gasps, blinking in the harsh light of the lab. Everything is very clear: she can read the map across the room perfectly and see the specks of dust on Howard's goggles as he takes them off.

"Easy," says Howard, staring at her. "Peg? You okay?"

"I—" She lets go of Bucky and carefully reaches for the wall to steady herself. "I’m not sure."

"Can you sit on the table for me?" He pats it, and she makes her way over carefully, slowly, not wanting to move too quickly as she climbs up and lets him shine a light in her eyes. "Pupils dilating very quickly when not exposed to light. Improved reaction time."

Carol writes everything down as Howard moves over her. "Increased lean muscle mass, arms and legs. Reflex test—" He taps her knee with a rubber mallet, and she kicks out so quickly that he drops it. "Very good. Write that down."

"I'm hungry," she says, half-surprised: her appetite isn't normally this sharp. _Increased metabolism?_

"Between you and Steve, the grocery bills are going to be tremendous," Howard jokes. "All right. Barnes, can you accompany her up to medical and rerun the tests? We need to see where she's improved. And get her something to eat on the way back down."

* * *

Post-medical tests and shoveling down two sandwiches, Peggy reflects.

She's increased in strength (able to lift four hundred and fifty pounds) and agility and is able to do _backflips,_ of all things: she'd tested much better on coordination, her mild astigmatism in one eye is gone completely, and her scars are gone—which is a bit sad to think about, really. They'd tested her healing by scratching her gently with a pin, and she's still not entirely healed, but it had stopped bleeding twice as fast as an ordinary person's would have. Her metabolic rate seemed to be about twice what it had been. Her body hasn't changed like Steve's, and she hasn't turned into a hulking super-woman, but she's certainly gained muscle, and everything _feels_ so much brighter and clearer that she keeps just breathing deeply, entranced by the smells of the food she's eating.

"It's weird. I know," says Barnes, nibbling on his own food. "Imagine having to go through this in a Nazi prison."

"Terrible," she agrees, and wolfs down Sandwich Two, gulping at the water provided. "Do you get used to it?"

"After a while, yeah," he says. "Wanna try sparring in the gym after this? I think I could snag Jones for a punching bag."

"Oh, I'd _love_ to," she says brightly.

* * *

They go back to the lab after Peggy gets some of the energy out of her system by wrangling Jones to the mat four times in a row and easily beating him, and Howard lays out her new field uniform and Bucky's repaired old one.

"Consider it an apology present," he says. "I've been working on it for a while, just in case, and, uh, well—there's no time like the present. I've already called Phillips and briefed him, and he's gotten the go-ahead from Cuba's UN rep to authorize your mission to the Isle of Pines."

Peggy looks down at her new uniform and smiles. "When do we start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:  
> -yes of COURSE this is the alternate universe where Peggy becomes Captain America. Marvel, eat my shorts  
> -pour one out for Jones y'all; constantly being beaten up a la Happy in Iron Man 2


	22. June 15, 1951

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated! Mind the tags PLEASE. Sad things ahead but not for long, I promise!

Natalia Romanoff sits silently in a folding chair on the concrete floor, dye washed out of her red hair and dressed in a fresh set of fatigues, and listens.

She's very good at listening: it is a skill she cultivated as a child. She can still hear Comrade Kudrin, firm and quiet: _hearing is not the same as listening, and looking is not the same as seeing. Look with more than eyes. Hear with more than ears._ However, Natalia doesn't need much intuition to hear the agonized sounds of a suffering man coming from across the dank room, floating around her like mist in an early-morning forest.

_Forest._

She thinks about the man strapped to the table, golden as the sun, and remembers what she would not before: the forest, the trees, two men and blood and the leaves in her hair.

 _Who was the other? James?_ She knows she knew at one time, but cannot remember—no. No, he was called _Bucky_ , she knew that. His other name is James. One man, two names and two arms of steel and flesh. _James._ She had gotten that out of Yelena, at least, before—

What _had_ happened to Yelena? Natalia tries to think, blocking out the screaming. She cannot remember most of the day she failed: the Red Room does not take kindly to failure. And there had been something else she had done, hadn't there? Recently? That was why she was on _this_ mission—to make up for her failure. She cannot remember what the failure was. _I never fail. I am made of marble. Unbreakable._ Kudrin had said as much, every day.

She can't remember the last time she saw Comrade Kudrin. Speaking of _time_ , she's also not sure what year it is precisely. Things…muddle and sweep a good deal after the times in the chair. Sometimes the wipes work. Sometimes they don't. Natalia is good at making them believe they always work.

The man, the _kapitan_ , he had said… _when you decide to defect_. Not _if_ , but _when_ , as if he knew already what she was going to do; as if she had done it before. How presumptuous. Natalia does not care for presumptuous men as a rule, but he had not been rude about it, only…matter of fact. As if the choice had already been made, and she had only to act on it. What kind of man was this? Her curiosity had not gotten the better of her before, but now… she finds herself wanting to question him, to demand answers. What does he mean by telling her who she is, or what she will do? How could he know?

She stands and goes to the table, and does not look at the man on it. "You keep this up," she tells the other men, sounding bored, "you'll send him into shock and kill him. I doubt he would be of value to you dead."

"I suppose we can wait for his red blood cell count to renew," says one man doubtfully as he puts down his forceps. She knows he is a doctor, a Soviet, because he took her to meet the other two: the second one is a Cubano—the one who got them here—the third is Chinese. All allies, temporarily, as most allies turn out to be. She does not know their names, and they know her only as a Black Widow.

"Go on, then," she says, waving a hand. "I will watch the prisoner."

The men move off, and Natalia waits until their footsteps have retreated far enough that they cannot hear her before she leans over the _kapitan's_ milk-white face. He does not seem conscious, and she does not blame him: having a needle shoved into one's spine and bones without anesthesia is not a pleasant thing. She knows from experience. " _Kapitan_ ," she says firmly.

His eyelids flutter, the long brown lashes spiked with tears as he opens his bloodshot eyes and fights to focus on her. "Nat?" he murmurs, and it's spoken with such tenderness that she pulls her head back in surprise. "Did you…Tony, is Tony coming?"

She's never known anyone named Tony, but he seems to be speaking to the woman he thinks she is and whoever that woman is, she must be an ally and a friend, so that must be who Natalia will become for now. "Later," she says, cupping his face in her palm. "I'll get you out later. It isn't safe now."

"I was dreaming," he says, voice cracking. "Saw…saw Peggy again. You remember her funeral. Married her. Had a… house. I dreamed we were gonna grow old together."

"I remember," says Natalia, because she can think of nothing else to say: these must be the ravings of a delirium.

"It hurts," says the man, tears rolling down his temples. "I didn't wanna do this anymore, but I couldn't… I couldn't leave Bucky out there…"

Yes! Bucky, this _Bucky_ , who is he? "Bucky?" she asks, pressing her cool palm to his strapped forehead. "Your friend?"

"Best friend," he chokes. He's running a fever: one of those fools must have used a dirty needle. "Couldn't let him go. Couldn't let you go either. I got him out, so why not you too?"

The Asset. Natalia remembers vague impressions of a metal arm, whispers of the new fist of the USSR, Hydra's finest weapon; a ghost story to scare the little Widows, all in their beds. "When he was…the Asset, you mean," she says.

"Yeah," sighs the _kapitan_ , eyes unfocused. "What…what year is it?"

"I—I don't know," she confesses, feeling unsettled. "I know it was…1950, the last time I knew."

"Oh," he says, sounding exhausted. "I have a lot further to go." His eyes drift shut.

She leans closer, confused. "You—"

The doors at the far end of the room explode inward, and gunfire erupts. Natalia leaps to her feet and springs off the table, landing low to the ground with her pistols in both hands as she fires and fires again and again, but none of her bullets seem to hit the figures storming the building, especially not the one in red, white, and blue.

She curses under her breath and tries again, but the figure darts so quickly she can barely follow and knocks her to the ground with one punch, the breath escaping her lungs, and she stares up into a woman's face, all fury and fire, dark hair pulled back. The suit is unmistakable: a white star emblazoned on her breast, the suit itself blue and red and white, a belt, a harness—but this is a _woman_ , the man on the table is— "You _can't_ be _—_ "

"Hi again, Natalia," says a voice, and she turns her head in horror to see _him_ , Bucky—James, but he's missing his arm and wielding a modified submachine gun. His hair is shorter than she had remembered it as being, and he's—oddly handsome, but looks furious. _He isn't supposed to be angry_ , she thinks, and doesn't know why she thinks that: after all, she's kidnapped his friend.

"Bucky?" she squeaks past the grip of the gloved hand around her throat.

"My _friends_ call me Bucky," he spits. "You are _not_ my friend."

"Barnes, get Steve off the table," says the woman, not taking her eyes off Natalia.

"No—" Natalia struggles, but is no match for the inhuman strength in the woman's arms. "If I fail my mission, they'll _wipe me again_ —don't take the _kapitan!_ "

"I'm the Captain now," snaps the woman. "I'll ask you this once, since your comrades were less forthcoming and are all, as a result, dead. _Who sent the serum to Barnes?_ "

Serum? Natalia's head spins. Serum. There had been something so important about the serum, something she'd been willing to…do something terrible for, something treasonous, something—

"She won't remember," says Barnes, and the derision in his voice hurts worse than poison.

A mailbox. Bright day, sunshine, sticking her hands into her pockets and turning—

"I mailed it," she rasps, and the woman lets up on her throat. "I—I mailed it away, sent it somewhere safe—"

"Why?" demands Barnes, efficiently loosing the bonds on the _kapitan's_ —Steve's—wrists and checking him over with his one hand.

"The—it—it was going to be given to Hydra. It couldn't—something—" She frantically tries to think past the screaming panic in her brain. "A last gasp attempt at forcing... a weapon. I tried to call…"

"How did you find out?" demands the woman.

"Because I listen and I see," Natalia tells her. "They are everywhere. Cut off a head—"

"Two more take its place. I know." The woman looks angry.

"Yes, but I mean, they're here. In Cuba. In every country. They're planning a coup—I don't know any names, but you'll see. Some things you can't stop." Natalia shakes her head. "You can't stop," she repeats, half-hysterical. They'll wipe her anyway: what does it matter what she says now?

Barnes lifts Steve off the table. "We gotta go," he says roughly. "He's lost a lot of blood and he's not doing well."

The woman looks down at her again. "Steve offered you a chance," she says tightly, her lips pressed into a line. "Only he can rescind it. That is the only reason I am leaving you alive."

"I'll never be able to defect," Natalia whispers. "Never. They'll find me. Anywhere I go. Just like they'll be able to find him." Her eyes track to Steve, pale and bloodless.

"If they come for him," says the woman, eyes blazing, "they'll have to get through me."

"Take me prisoner, then," Natalia says quickly, evaluating her chances. "They'd have to get through you..."

"I'm not taking prisoners today," says the woman, and the next thing Natalia knows, something pricks her arm and she's sinking, sinking down into a soft black pit, and nothing matters anymore.

* * *

"Let's go," says Peggy, discarding the drugged needle from Natalia's belt. She rather hoped it was poisonous, but then again, who knew what the Red Room gave their fighters? "Did you see any of the harvested material on your way in?"

"Help me lift him," says Barnes, straining under Steve's dead weight. Peggy gets her arm around Steve's back and under his arms, and together they make for the door, coming out into the pitch blackness of the Cuban pine forests, the buzz of insects in the air and the taste of the sea somewhere close. "Fifty yards to the jet. Everything is on board: I got O'Malley on it."

They drag Steve between them, and Peggy does not allow herself to think for a moment that he might be dead already. He hasn't spoken a word, and there's been no time to check a pulse. _Please, God,_ she prays, just in case a higher power is listening, _do not let him die._

The jet's interior is lit, and Barnes kicks his way up to the pilot's seat. "Howard, get us out of here," he says quickly as Peggy lays Steve out on the cot and starts dragging out the bags of blood and the bandages. In the light, he looks much worse than she'd thought, and she grinds her teeth against tears as she rips open sterile bandages, trying to help Barbara and keep her eyes on her work. It's no use.

They'd drilled into the back of his hips for bone marrow: there's a plaster over his spine where someone had drawn off fluid. His skin has been peeled back in some places, half-healing already, and his forehead is cut where he had strained against the strap that held his head down. Wrists and ankles are chafed and raw, and he's covered in drying blood. His face is pale, and his lips are chapped and bleeding from being bitten. The stench of the blood makes her gag, coppery and dark.

"Steve," she whispers, forgetting her duties and cradling his head as Nurse Barbara hurries to set up the bag of fluids. "Oh, my darling, I'm so sorry." She can only compartmentalize for so long, especially when she feels as if she's about to shatter into pieces.

"Prepare for takeoff," Howard calls from the cockpit, and they grip the provided straps as the jet lifts off vertically, then accelerates over the treetops. Peggy barely hears him as Bucky joins her, crouched at her side.

He checks Steve's pulse with his fingers, and squeezes Peggy's hand. "He's alive," he says hoarsely, and she can feel just how much stress is vibrating through his frame. "We got him. He's gonna be okay."

"He's too dehydrated," says Barbara, looking pale as she tries to find a vein. "I can't get the line going—"

Peggy reaches up for the canteen of water and splashes some onto Steve's face. His lips part slightly and he cracks an eyelid. "Open up, Rogers," she says briskly, trying to be curt. "That's an order."

"Huh," he rasps, and Bucky props him up so he doesn't choke, trying to be careful and bracing him against his chest as Peggy slowly gives him water. He gulps at it, desperately thirsty, and Barbara finally manages to get the line in, feeding blood into his body to replace the losses.

"You're safe now," Peggy repeats, over and over like a broken record. "Steve. I'm so sorry—"

"We're getting a transmission from base," shouts Howard. "Phillips says to tell you well done, Carter." _I shall never be parted from my maiden name, it seems_ , thinks Peggy wryly.

"Peggy," croaks Steve, and she looks down quickly to see his eyes fixed on her chest. "I thought…" Both eyes track up, bloodshot and bleary, to her face. "S'you."

"Hullo, darling," she says bravely, trying to smile past her tears. "I'm so sorry I hadn't come sooner."

He struggles to speak, but works "Took…uh. While. To get your hair cut. Huh?" past his lips, and she doesn't know whether to burst into tears or laugh. "Got to…keep you. On your toes."

"You sure put the fear of God into us for a minute there, Stevie," Bucky says hoarsely, and wraps his arm tight around the other man in a one-armed embrace. "You wanna lie back down?"

"No—I—" He looks around, seemingly bewildered. "Nat. Nat was there—"

"I knocked her out." Peggy puts a hand on his knee: it seems to be the only unbruised part of him. "She was torturing you."

"No, she was—" Steve blinks. "Asking me. Questions. I think. The men…they were doing that."

"If she wants to defect, she can do it on her own," says Bucky bitterly. "I wasn't about to put that gal into our jet for a four hour plane ride."

Steve looks like he wants to argue, but instead shuts his eyes and is ordered by Nurse Barbara to lie down flat, so they lower him down. Neither Bucky nor Peggy leave his side for the rest of the flight back to the Playground: they sit and they wait and they watch faint color come back into his cheeks, and they don't move until the jet touches down on the airstrip and they emerge into the morning summer mists.

* * *

Peggy sits in the women's locker room, unable to bring herself to wash the blood off her hands.

It feels like letting Steve go all over again, as if she must clutch every piece and bit of hair and blood and flesh to her as close as she can lest he be lost, and she sits, hands trembling as she leans against the wall and stares at the overhead fluorescent lights.

She hasn't even removed her boots or her trousers: the navy material clings to her legs, sodden with blood, and the blood-stained jacket Howard had designed is thrown over the bench beside her. There's no telling how long she's been sitting there, frozen.

The door opens and Barnes walks in, ignoring the fact that this is supposed to be a women's locker room, and sits beside her. He's already showered and changed, and he tucks his hand under her arm and pulls her up. She lets him do it. "C'mon," he says softly, leading her to the showers. "You gotta get cleaned up."

"The—the materials—" She can't bring herself to say _the refrigerated cases full of blood and marrow and fluid and skin_ : she can't do it. "Are they—"

"Under lock and key in the lab. Nobody but Howard is getting them. Steve's in a recovery room asking for you. Let's get you showered, huh?"

She numbly lets him strip her out of her undershirt, her trousers: she takes her own boots off, her socks; Peggy gets into the shower and stands there under his direction as blood sloughs off her body, water plasters her hair to her cheeks. She cries, feeling utterly powerless for all her newfound physical strength, and when she's done, red-eyed and soaked, Bucky hands her a towel and she dries herself off, then changes into a simple blouse and pair of trousers. He guides her to the door, but she halts at the threshold, immovable as something begins a telltale, sinking ache deep in her abdomen.

"I think—my—one moment," she says quickly, and leaves Barnes at the door while she hurries into a toilet cubicle, yanking her trousers down and staring at the bright, fresh blood clotting in her briefs. _Oh, bloody Nora, what a hell of a time for it_ , she thinks, and stuffs the gusset of her underwear with toilet paper. It'll do until she can get home.

* * *

Steve's recovery room is one of the small private rooms on the hall Bucky had stayed in after his extraction. There's an observation window, and it's right by the nurses' station: someone's filled the room with flowers, and the scents make Peggy's nose itch, even standing just outside.

"Oh—Director, one moment," says Nurse Bea, curly hair bouncing as she pulls her aside with a chart. "Your, ah, your urinalysis came back."

"Ah," says Peggy, still thinking about whether or not she can borrow a belt from one of the other nurses if she has to stay longer than an hour.

"Yes, and, well—may I congratulate you and your husband—" Bea is smiling, but still being quiet: she's always liked that about the nurse. Efficient and purposeful and—

Wait. Congratulate? _What_?

"I'm sorry?" Peggy manages.

"You're expecting," chirps Bea, opening her chart. "Hormone levels aren't to be mistaken—Director? Are you all right?"

"I'm—but—" She picks up the chart with shaking hands and looks at it, directly at the bit on it where the hCG levels have been marked. "But—Bea, I only just started my cycle, down in the locker room."

Bea looks taken aback, but then her face falls. "Oh—I'm _so_ sorry, Director. Do you have—I mean, can I get you some things?"

"In a moment—" She's still staring at the chart, her heart feeling as if it might break apart in her chest: this isn't a cycle at all, then: the pregnancy, if it can even be considered a pregnancy, hasn't caught and she's… she's losing it. "Yes. Please—if you can get me something—" She hands the clipboard back to the nurse.

"All we have here are tampons: have you ever used them?" Bea's already furiously scribbling on the chart.

"Once. Yes." Her gut is aching awfully: perhaps they have some aspirin.

"I'll give you one for now and one for later." Bea turns to a drawer in the nurses' station and pulls out two of the things: looking very small in her hand. "When—when you go home, do try to rest and put your feet up."

"I must have been losing them all this time," Peggy mumbles, feeling as if she's in a dreadful nightmare. "I was—none of them took—I never knew—"

"Oh, Peggy," says Bea, clinging to her hands as she presses the tampons into her palm. "I'm sure it wasn't anything you did. Sometimes they just don't catch. My ma lost two before she had me and my brother."

"What am I going to tell my husband?" Peggy whispers, and her lower lip begins to tremble uncontrollably, her eyes filling with tears.

"You don't tell him a thing you don't want to," Bea says, taking her shoulders. "As far as he knows, it's just your cycle."

"But if we can't have children—" Peggy can't stop the tears, and Bea pulls her into a hug. "He wanted them," she sobs. "And if I can't have them—"

"There could be something wrong with _him_ ," Bea says. "Steve—sorry, I mean Mr. Rogers—" She blushes, and Peggy has to laugh through her tears: Steve really is SHIELD's worst-kept secret. "We'll see if there's anything the matter with him later on, if we're able to tell. It'll be okay."

"Thank you," Peggy says between wet sniffs. "Lord, I'm a wreck. I suppose I'll go in and see him, now."

"You do that. But go to the restroom first and take care of business." Bea smiles at her, and Peggy takes a deep breath, smiles back, and heads to the toilet.

* * *

Steve can hear Bucky.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. He's been given a lot of painkillers, and Bucky sounds like he's coming from the bottom of a well, or maybe through a wad of cotton batting. "Hey, Stevie. How ya feeling?"

He wants to say something, but he's so tired, and everything aches. "Ungh," he manages, past cracked lips. The room smells like flowers, and the faintly sterile tang of a hospital. _Safe._

The creak of a door: the faint step on a linoleum floor. "Is he sleeping?" He knows that voice; loves that voice. He tries to get his eyes open, but it's such a weight. Why is he so weak?

"No," says Bucky. "He tried to say something a moment ago. They said he's badly anemic from the loss of the red blood cells—they took so much that his body couldn't keep up, even with the advanced healing he's got. It'll be a couple of days before he's back to normal."

"But he'll be all right," says Peggy, and Steve forces himself to crack his eyelids. There she is: red-eyed and looking a mess, with a blouse and a pair of trousers on. He'd thought he'd dreamed her in his uniform, but her hair was shorter then and it's shorter now, so it must not have been a dream after all. "Won't he?"

"After a while, yeah."

"Peggy," he forces out, hoarse and squeaking, and she's at his side in an instant, hand cupping his.

"Yes, darling? I'm here. It's all right."

"Let's not…do any of this stuff anymore," he rasps. "Collateral damages. Too high."

"You don't have to worry about that right now," she says, stroking the back of his hand. "Hush. You just sleep, and get better."

"You don't gotta worry about being kidnapped again, either," says Bucky, who's on his other side. "Your wife's a super-woman now."

"Oh, shut up," says Peggy, and Steve has to try for a smile at that. "We think Natalia mailed Bucky the last of the super-soldier serum that Russia developed, and—well, Howard gave it to me."

"Good," croaks Steve. "How…d'ya feel?"

She hesitates, and her voice shakes a little. "Rather as if… it should have been someone else."

"It shouldn't have," he tells her, and shuts his eyes, exhausted.

"You sleep," she whispers, stroking his hair. "I'll be here when you wake up."

* * *

 _You have failed your mission_.

Natalia knows this, knows it as deeply as she knows herself: they take her to the chair and strap her down, set a guard between her teeth, and lower the electric nodes to her temples.

Light shocks through her body. She brings to mind the image of James, Bucky, the man with no arm: she clings to it like a child clings to a toy at night to keep away the monsters, and the light cannot wash him away, no matter how hard they will try.

_I am unbreakable. I am made of marble, my skin steel and my heart a diamond._

_I am unbreakable._


	23. June 20, 1951

"I did want to ask one thing," says Steve awkwardly to Nurse Garcia as she's checking off his chart. He's nearly fully recovered, and he's eager to go home and join Peggy, but there's one thing niggling at his mind that he can't quite shake.

"Yes?" asks Carol, pen poised.

"Um, maybe I should ask a male doctor," he says, evading her all-knowing dark stare.

She sighs. "Mr. Rogers, I served in the Nursing Corps in Normandy and had to put a guy's testicles back into his scrotum and stitch them up, neat as you please, among other things. I highly doubt you can say or do anything that'll shock my ladylike sensibilities."

"All right. Uh, I was wondering if it would be possible to test—my, uh—" He runs a hand across his face. "My… see, uh, my wife and I, we haven't… we—I was wondering if maybe the serum made me, uh, sterile."

"Oh," says Carol, tilting her head. "Everything in… regular working order?"

"Yes." His cheeks flame scarlet.

Carol flips a sheet of paper over. "Well, Director Carter seems to be in perfect health, regular everything. According to her chart—oh." She peers at something on the chart and a flicker crosses her expression before her face smooths into blank interest. "Well, we could take a sample of your, ah, sperm and have a look, if you like."

"What's on her chart?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

Nurse Garcia plasters on a bright smile. "Nothing you need to worry about.  Should I go get a, ah, vial for you?"

"Jeez," he mutters, rubbing his nose. "Yeah."

"You can just leave it at our station when you're done. I think Barbara's in, and she can get it to the lab," Carol tells him, rummaging through the cabinets and handing him a small glass jar with a plastic lid. "After that you should be ready to go. I think Bucky—erm, Agent Barnes, is going to drive you, and he ought to be pulling up any moment now."

"I didn't know you were on a first-name basis," says Steve lightly, winking as she blushes.

"Oh—he—well, he likes to take us out to the movies weekends. Sometimes. Betty and Barbie went with him last week."

"I hope he's behaving himself." Steve sets the jar on the bedside table. There are some faded petals on the Formica that haven't been wiped down yet, and he knows Phillips probably sent more flowers to the house for Peggy, if not for him. Everyone's been extremely apologetic to both of them for the past four days, walking on eggshells and offering him coffee, sandwiches, extra blankets; delivering anything and everything to the house.

"Very much so," Carol says. "He's a perfect gentleman. We wouldn't do anything that, you know, complicated a working relationship."

"Of course not," agrees Steve. "Well, I'll, uh, see you around."

"Sure," she says, and slips out the door, shutting it.

Steve pulls the blinds on the observation window and sighs, then stares begrudgingly at the jar on the table. Well, he might as well get on with it. No sense in waiting.

* * *

Bucky's waiting in the driver's seat of his jalopy when Steve steps outside, waving. "Hey! Guess who managed to pass his driver's license test with one arm?"

"Phillips?" jokes Steve, sliding into the passenger seat with a wince: a tinge of pain shoots up his thigh. That's new: he's never felt long-lasting repercussions from physical injuries before. _I really am getting old_ , he thinks.  But hey, they'd drilled into his hips, so it stood to reason that his nerves might be a little touchy for a while.

"No, dummy. Me. Buckle up, because this bad boy's an automatic." Bucky puts the car into gear and they speed off. "What took you so long?"

"Nothing. Just some tests." Steve hopes he sounds nonchalant enough that Bucky won't ask questions, and it must work, because he doesn't. "How's Peggy doing?"

"She, uh, well—she's kinda—" Bucky looks uncomfortable. "You know. Monthly… thing."

Steve fights a smile. "C'mon. You'll have to deal with it one day, too."

"Me? Ha." Bucky rolls his eyes. "I'll be a bachelor till the day I die. Just like the old days."

"That's not what Nurse Garcia said." Steve waits for the shoe to drop, and Bucky sighs deeply and turns onto the highway south.

"What, am I not allowed to go on a date?"

"Bucky. They're your _coworkers_ —"

"You and Peggy were coworkers—"

"That's different. We knew each other before—"

"Ain't nothing wrong with catching a Saturday movie with people who like me!" Bucky's hand grips the wheel, white-knuckled. "Jesus, Steve. I'm a one-armed vet who's in no mood to settle down. Girls aren't exactly lining up at my door, all right? We don't all get the damn fairy-tale ending."

"Sorry," mutters Steve, looking out the window instead.

"What, uh. What else did Carrie say?" Bucky shoots him a sideways look.

"She said you and Barbie and Betty all went out last weekend and enjoyed yourselves."

"Yeah," says Bucky, "it's hers and Bea's turn this week." He's quiet, and Steve sits in the awkwardness until he blurts out, "It's not like I'm dragging them off to the apartment, okay?"

Steve blinks. "What?"

"Bea came back _once_ , and we didn't do anything—I didn't—" Bucky's cheeks are scarlet. "Not that we—I mean, I didn't try _that_ —I'm not taking them out to get in their damn pants."

"I didn't say you were!"

"I'm just—it's just—all we did was neck some, okay?"

Steve tries very hard to not think about Bea Anderson's lean and gangly frame draped over Bucky. "Oh, God, Buck," he says. "She's your _doctor_ —"

"Not anymore!" Bucky holds up a finger, taking his hand off the wheel before slamming it back down. "I double-checked, and I'm under a different guy's jurisdiction now—my shrink, the one from Vienna—"

"Doctor Weinstein."

"Yeah, I see him once a month and I don't see Bea anymore for—for shrink reasons, and so—so it's fine. It's fine." He stares straight ahead, jaw clenched into a sharp line.

Steve narrows his eyes. " _Is_ it fine, Buck?"

He lets out a sigh that seems to come up out of his feet, it lasts for so long, and he shakes his head. "No. It ain't fine. Something's wrong with me."

"What do you mean? Like how you were telling me a coupla months ago?"

"I can't—I'm not gonna talk about it," says Bucky firmly. "Whatever it is, it's my business."

"So it isn't what you were telling me about," Steve prods gently. "Is it?"

"Not exactly," he says uncomfortably. "I'll handle it. It ain't serious. I promise." He looks tired all of a sudden, as if talking has worn him out for the day, and they ride in amiable silence until they cross the Potomac and reach the neighborhood.

"The good news," says Steve, breaking the silence as they turn onto his street, "is that Peggy apparently poses a hell of a threat. Not a peep out of anyone, Soviets or Hydra, while they chew on that."

"Yeah, well. If you get kidnapped again, that's on us," says Bucky, grinning. "Try not to, okay?"

"I know," Steve jokes. "I was doing so well. Eight whole months."

"Well, now you lay low and wait for someone to tell you what to do, I guess," says Bucky as he parks on the street in front of the yellow house. Their Studebaker is parked and shining in the drive, and he can see Peggy in the front window, watching them pull up. His heart leaps. "Have a nice rest of the day, and try to rest," Bucky tells him.

"Will do. Thanks, pal." He slides out of the car stiffly and heads up the walk, waving off Bucky as he mounts the steps and opens the screen door.

Peggy's got the inside door open before he can move, and offers him a bright smile. "Safely back, then?" she asks, standing aside so he can come in.

"Sure am, and all in one piece thanks to you," he says, taking his jacket off as she shuts the door. The house is sparkling tidy, not a thing out of place, and the record player is warbling Bing Crosby. A pang of nerve pain shoots up his thigh again, and he makes it to the sofa before sitting down gingerly, trying not to aggravate it.

"Still hurting a bit?" Peggy asks, hurrying into the kitchen. He can hear her getting down a bottle and filling a glass. "I've got some aspirin."

"Don't think that'll do much," he says, experimentally lifting his knee and wincing as a stab of pain shoots up his femur and into his hip. "They said any lasting pain should go away in a week or so, and that if I was—well, if I wasn't _this_ , then I would have been permanently crippled."

"As long as you're alive, I couldn't care less," says Peggy firmly, and comes back into the living room. Her eyes flicker across him and she makes a movement as if she wants to come closer, but doesn't, cutting off the half-formed gesture. "I—I really am very glad you're home."

Steve pats the sofa next to him, offering a smile. "You want to sit down and tell me how much you missed me?"

"I'm afraid I can't, I've got… I've got to whip something up for dinner," she says quickly, and avoids eye contact as she heads back to the kitchen, where he hears her rummaging around the refrigerator.

That's…odd. Peggy usually likes cuddling on the sofa, even when it's that time of the month. _Did I say something?_   "You… d'you want a neck rub?" She's touted his back and neck rubs as the cure for all ills; headache, cramps, anything. _Better than a hot-water bottle_ , she likes to say.

"No, thank you," she says from the kitchen. "You just…you just put your feet up and rest, all right?"

 _But I don't want to put my feet up. I want to hold my wife_. Steve stares at the radio and purses his lips. Maybe she's just anxious about his injuries. He'll try again later.

* * *

That evening, Steve gets into bed and waits until almost ten for Peggy to join him, at which time she comes into the bedroom and informs him without making eye contact she's going to sleep on the sofa tonight, because she's not feeling very well.

"Is it…your…your monthlies?" he asks, at a loss.

After that, she does look at him. "Don't worry about it. And don't you try to make me sleep in here and you take the sofa, either, because you're recovering and I won't have it."

"O...okay," he says, but she's already leaving, taking a blanket with her and leaving him alone in their bed.

* * *

It lasts for three weeks.

She doesn't come to bed, she gently rebuffs any and every advance he makes, no matter how innocuous, she throws herself into cleaning and scrubbing and cooking like a madwoman. Steve can't make head or tail of it, and resigns himself to fiddling around in the backyard with his pencils and watercolors, capturing the rosebushes, the oak tree, the dandelions. He must have done something wrong, but he has no idea what it is, and she won't talk about it.

Anna and Michael come over the third Saturday: Anna has turned six and gushes about her new swimsuit and about how excited she is to start first grade in the fall. She stuffs her face full of fresh strawberries and raspberries as Steve shows her how to make crepes; meanwhile, Michael and Peggy sit in the living room and drink tea, chatting.

"Okay," says Steve, a gingham apron wrapped around his waist, "you have to be really careful when you tilt the pan to make a circle. It has to be even."

Anna sticks her tongue out in concentration and grips the handle of the pan, kneeling on the kitchen stool over the stove. Steve looks up, having the feeling he's being watched, and sees Peggy, looking at the pair of them through the kitchen door with the strangest look on her face…but it fades, and she goes back to talking to her brother as Anna gleefully sets the pan down on the burner, a perfect circle of batter sizzling in the bottom.

"What did I do?" he asks outright that night as he catches her in the hallway on the way to the bathroom.

"Nothing," she says, trying to step around him.

"Peggy—"

"I want to brush my teeth. Excuse me." She slips past him and into the bathroom, where she shuts the door, and for the first time ever, he hears the lock on the door snick into place.

* * *

The phone rings Monday morning, and Steve picks it up. "Hello?"

It's Nurse Betty Li. " _Mr. Rogers! Your results are in from the test; would you like to come in to the medical center?"_

The test? The test. He'd almost forgotten about the test. "Oh! Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can."

" _Great. See you soon."_ She hangs up, and Steve looks down the hall.

"Peggy? I'm heading to the Playground. Checkup." It's not exactly a lie, but at least he'll be able to report that the weird nerve pains are diminishing.

"All right," comes the distant answer from the bedroom.

Steve slips on his jacket and heads out the door, bringing the Studebaker to life with a roar and driving off down the street. If he hurries, he'll be able to get there before lunch and maybe grab something to eat on the way back. Peggy usually makes enough for both of them at lunch, but he'd rather avoid her if that's what she's decided she wants.

What has he done wrong? She won't kiss him, won't touch him: it feels like being roommates again, but worse, because he _knows_ what he's missing now. He's been reduced to bringing himself off in the shower like an awkward teenager, muffling his sounds as best he can with his free hand. Whatever's wrong, she refuses outright to talk about it. Maybe he'll have to corner her in the garage or something. Maybe he should move back in with Bucky, although Bucky won't care for that, most likely.

Steve turns off the highway and pulls up in front of the Playground. He has to admit their idea for a disguise was pretty good: it's built to look like an abandoned office building and almost half the actual facilities are underground. He parks in the subterranean garage and walks in, greeting the guards and passing through to the elevator, which he takes up to the infirmary.

"Oh, Mr. Rogers!" Nurse Li picks up her phone at the station as he walks out of the elevator. "Yes, Doctor Lieberman, he's here." She covers the receiver with a hand and nods at the chairs along one wall. "You can wait a moment, he'll be right up."

Steve sits gingerly in one of the plastic chairs and waits, his hands resting on his knees. It must be something unexpected if Betty couldn't just tell him what it was. _Oh, God,_ he thinks, belly tight with fear. _I'm sterile, aren't I? I knew it. Peggy's going to be so disappointed._

Dr. Lieberman, who's about half a foot shorter than Steve with a military-style haircut that does nothing to disguise his tight gray curls, comes in from the hall, picking up Steve's chart and another before turning to him. "Good morning, Mr. Rogers," he says cheerfully. "Come on down and we'll talk in my office."

 _Oh, no._ Steve follows, totally mute with dread until he sits in the leather chair in front of Lieberman's desk and the doctor sits down across from him. "What… what's the verdict?" he asks.

"So," says the doctor, peering down at the chart through his glasses. "I'm shocked they didn't take sperm samples before you were irradiated in '43."

"I, uh, don't think they had that in mind at the time," says Steve.

"No, of course not. What with the war and all. Anyway." Lieberman taps the chart. "Your sperm counts are extremely high: over 400 million per milliliter, twice what I'd consider high for an average healthy man. Activity is excellent: they survive nearly three times as long as I expected."

That certainly doesn't sound as if he's sterile. "So what… what's the problem?"

"Previously, your wife lacked the ability to…carry a fertilized zygote." The doctor pulls open a chart and points to a diagram of a female reproductive system. "You may not be aware, but after an act of congress, shall we say, the sperm travels up the fallopian tubes, here, and when it finds an egg ready and waiting, which happens every month halfway through the cycle of a woman's body, it is able to fertilize said egg, making it what we call a zygote. The zygote then travels back through the tube, where it burrows into the lining of the uterus, becoming a blastocyst, and if all goes well, then the blastocyst develops into a fetus."

Steve frowns at the drawing. "But you said she can't?"

"No, Mr. Rogers. Not previously. Your genetic code is… well, it's not compatible with hers, or it wasn't before she received the serum similar to yours lately. Her body wasn't capable of carrying anything past what we call a chemical pregnancy: they don't implant into the uterine lining and usually end in a spontaneous abortion around the time of the expected cycle's start, which was why she seemed so regular, as you reported—"

"Hold on," says Steve, mind reeling. "You're telling me she's been…she's…"

"According to Director Carter's chart, yes," says Lieberman kindly. "She was last confirmed to have a chemical pregnancy by a urine test…" He looks down. "The fifteenth of June. Came as quite a shock to her, Nurse Anderson said. She was already losing it by the time the test results had come back."

"But…" Steve swallows, he can't lose it in front of the doctor. "But that was right after she got the serum; the day she pulled me out of Cuba."

"Yes, but the old zygote had already passed the window of implantation before she received it," explains Lieberman patiently. "A woman's born with all the eggs she's going to have over her whole life: they don't generate new ones as they go. The ones in her ovaries were irradiated with the serum and the radiation like the rest of her body and organs: so was her uterus. She shouldn't have any trouble now becoming pregnant or carrying a perfectly healthy fetus to term, if her reproductive system's been enhanced like yours have been."

"She's been losing them," Steve croaks, eyes damp in spite of his will to not break down. "Oh, my God. I never knew."

"She didn't either," says Lieberman. "I expect it was a shock to find out. Is there a possibility she might be pregnant again?"

"No," says Steve, shaking his head. "No, she—she won't let me come near her. Not for the past month, almost. God—I must have come home and she was still—still bleeding—"

Lieberman looks him over and must think that this calls for something a bit stronger than penicillin, because he crosses over to the side table and pours Steve a good stiff drink. "Here."

"I can't get drunk," Steve says hoarsely, staring at the glass.

"I know. It's the thought that counts."

Steve throws the stuff back and sets the glass aside. It burns, but there's no promise of a light head later. "What do we—what can I do?"

"You go home," says Lieberman, sitting on his desk. "Tell your wife you love her. Don't rush her into anything. Nothing's more detrimental to pregnancy than an upset wife. And when you've both decided you're done, for heaven's sake come in and see me. At the rate you've likely been going, we'll be overrun with little Rogerses."

* * *

The screen door is closed but the front door is open when Steve returns home. Three steps up to the porch, two steps to the door, the rattle of the screen door opening and shutting slowly, and he's inside.

"I'm back," he calls out, resolving to be strong.

Peggy's been cleaning the bathrooms today, apparently: she emerges from the hall with a bucket in one hand and a scrub brush in the other: wearing overalls, hair tied away from her face with a scarf, a mop clenched under her arm. "Oh," she says, eyes lighting onto him, "good. Dinner's in the oven: it's meatloaf. How was the checkup?"

There's no point beating around the bush, and he'd hate himself if he was any less honest with her than she deserved. "Put the bucket down a minute, would you?"

She lowers it to the ground, and he lets his eyes track across the muscle of her forearm, corded and lean. "Yes? Is it bad? You seemed to be doing all right with the hip pain—"

"I know," Steve says simply, and just looks at her.

Peggy's eyes widen fractionally, and her lower lip begins to quiver, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. She drops the brush in the bucket with a plop. "You…"

"You didn't tell me," he says, and lets some of the hurt and isolation he's been feeling all these weeks slip into his voice.

"It wasn't your burden to bear," she says, voice trembling. "It wasn't anyone's secret to tell but _mine_ —"

"It's my burden too if you're my wife," he insists. "How am I supposed to help you if I don't even know why you won't let me near you? How am I supposed to support you?"

Peggy shakes her head, tears flowing now. "You shouldn't have to—it wasn't anything at all, it was barely days old—" Her voice is fracturing now, devolving into pent-up sobbing. "It w-was over in days. Why am I s-so _upset_ about it?"

Steve wants to take her in his arms like he's never wanted anything before in his life. "Please," he says, his own voice cracking. "Please. I know you don't want anything to do with me, but can I at least hold your hand?"

She drops the mop and stumbles toward him, both arms tight around his waist, and he wraps his arms around her in the biggest embrace he can give while she buries her face in his chest and just cries and cries as if her heart's about to break. He picks her up gently, and takes her to the sofa, where he sits her on his lap and tucks her head under his chin, rocking her gently. She's more solid than she had been, warmer and firmer, and he brushes tears off her cheeks as she cries.

After her sobs devolve into hiccups and she's dry-eyed and red in the face, he says, "I had them check me for problems, you know. That's what they told me when I went in today. I thought it was me."

"And it wasn't," she says, sounding exhausted. "It was me. I can't—I couldn't—"

"No." Steve tucks his finger under her chin and makes her look at him. "It was not you. It _was_ me."

"What? But I was—they were—there's no telling how many I lost—"

"Because something's weird about my genes. And before you—before you got the serum, too, your body couldn't hold onto anything I gave you. It's—it was me." He feels tears gathering behind his eyes, hot and itchy. "It was me."

Peggy covers her mouth with her hand and squeezes her eyes shut, shaking with silent sobs. "It was both of us, then," she manages after a moment, taking her hand away. "Oh, Steve."

"If you—if you still want to sleep on the sofa, you can," he says quietly, brushing tears off her cheeks with his thumb. "Just don't shut me out. Please don't shut me out. I want to be a husband, not a roommate."

"I thought you'd be angry at me," she whispers, too emotional to look at him. "I thought—I thought you'd want children more than—"

"More than _you_?" Steve cups her cheek in his hand. "Not in a million years. Is that why you've been climbing the walls to keep the place clean and keep baking more pies than I can eat in a month?"

She snorts, wiping her eyes. "Yes, I suppose so," she manages. "Did they—did they say if we might try again?"

"I was given a very strict prescription: to tell you I loved you and to not rush a thing. But there's no reason now that we can't have as many children as we want."

"I'm…I'm due to begin a new cycle in the next two weeks, I think," she says hesitantly. "It all felt…rather different this time around. Last week I thought I was having a fever, and I swear I could feel myself ovulating."

Steve frowns. "Well, you might be the only woman on the earth under the effects of the serum who can still have children. Who knows what the side effects are like?"

"If one of them is increased fecundity, I can see why the Russians decided to just sterilize all the Widows," she says bitterly. "I hope it doesn't interfere with my work, at any rate."

"I don't think wild horses could drag you away from your work," says Steve, and kisses her on the forehead. "Let's eat some of that meatloaf. I'll make mashed potatoes."

"I made some already. With milk and not water, since you're so particular." Peggy wrinkles her nose at him. "Let me go wash my face and I'll join you."

"Hey, Peggy," he says softly, as she's heading for the hallway. "We don't have to…just sleep together for having kids, you know."

"I—I know," she says hesitantly, one hand on the bucket she'd set down. "Yes. Erm. Well."

"Take your time anyway," he tells her. "I'm not going anywhere."

Steve thinks she whispers, "thank you," but by the time he's turned, she's already down the hall.

* * *

 

That night, Peggy climbs back into their bed, and Steve wordlessly opens his arms. She lies down, her back to his chest, and they fall asleep together for the first time in almost a month, entwined in each other's arms so firmly that nothing can separate them.

* * *

 

By the end of July, Peggy's expecting.


	24. November 23, 1955

"Jamie!" calls Peggy, tugging on her left shoe. She still has a week to go until maternity leave starts for Baby Two, and her feet are swelling so badly she can barely force the pump on. "James Michael Rogers, what have you _done_ with my watch?"

"Mama!" shrieks the owner of that name, and streaks naked into the living room, followed closely by a harried Steve, who's got his sleeves rolled up and a towel over his shoulder. "Mama watch!"

"He tried to flush it down the toilet," says Steve apologetically, holding up the dripping metal. "I'll take it to the jewelers today."

"Oh, my lord," says Peggy. "Well, Dr. Spock says the terrible twos sometimes extend into the threes. Jamie, come give Mama a kiss goodbye."

"Bye-bye, Mama," says Jamie, and suffers his mother to kiss him on the head before grinning up at his father. "Daddy! Daddy _bath!_ "

"Daddy," says Steve, "is not getting into the bath. You are."

"Nooooo," shouts James as Steve wraps him in the terrycloth. He lets out a series of bloodcurdling shrieks as Steve hauls him back to the bathroom.

Peggy steps outside and hurries down to the walk: if Steve's taking the car to go to the jewelers, she might as well take the bus. Today she has to go to the White House first thing, and she's not looking forward to it. Even her most fashionable swing coat can't exactly hide the frumpy drawstring skirt she'd had to make herself _or_ a thirty-five week pregnancy, and Mamie Eisenhower is frilly and pink and designer to the core. _Perhaps I won't have to speak to her,_ she thinks as she boards the bus. The last visit, the President had to apologize to her personally because one of his aides had assumed she was with the Missionary Union and sent her off to Mamie instead of to the Oval Office, and after a very awkward conversation she had brought Peggy back to the office where the President and the head of the CIA had been waiting, simply stating "Ike, I believe I have found your missing Director." The aide had been summarily sacked.

Perhaps it wasn't quite fair to Mamie, anyway. It was hardly easy to be a First Lady. It was even less easy to be a Director of SHIELD when she felt as if her feet were disappearing more every day and she got asked more questions about the baby than anything else at work. She'd nearly slapped a stranger on the bus last week who had eyed up her ring-free left hand (the swelling made it impossible to wear jewelry) and asked her pointedly what she thought she was going to do without a father in the picture: what on earth possessed people to invade a woman's private life once she was expecting?

Mentally, Peggy calculates: it must be an important meeting, since Thanksgiving is tomorrow. She's not sure what she expects at all, but whatever it is was urgent because the phone had rung at two in the morning, waking up Jamie and subsequently the rest of the house.

The bus grinds to a halt, and Peggy looks at her watch: she ought to get close enough to take a taxi to the White House soon. A tiny foot or knee or possibly even an elbow jabs into her ribs, and she sits up straight, frowning. This little one is just as strong as Jamie was in utero, and Jamie's already resilient enough to fall out of his highchair with no real consequences. _We'll have a whole family of super-men_ , she thinks ruefully, rubbing the top of her belly under the swing coat. She doesn't know what on earth she'll do if she has another boy: Jamie is quite enough of a handful on his own. Steve's convinced this one is a girl, but he also thought Jamie was a girl, too, so his opinion counts for nothing.

She gets out at Union Station and hails a cab. There is no way she's walking in this chill with feet that feel the size of catching mitts.

* * *

"Director Carter," says Phillips warmly as ever as she walks into the Oval Office, flanked by two Secret Service agents. "Good to see you. Sorry about the call. I know it was early."

"Perfectly all right. If James is to follow in his parents' footsteps, he should get used to waking at all hours," she says, smiling.

"The President will be in shortly. He's not going to enjoy this." Phillips sighs. "I've already spoken to the CIA."

"What—"

The doors open, and Dwight Eisenhower walks in, looking as gimlet-eyed and balding as he ever has. "Phillips," he says cordially. "Director Carter. Morning."

"Morning, Mr. President," says Phillips as Eisenhower crosses to the desk and sits. "Hate to be the bearer of bad news, so I'll just come out and say it. The Soviets have successfully built and tested a hydrogen bomb in Kazakhstan."

"Jesus Christ," says Eisenhower, sagging back into his chair.

"Yes, sir. The CIA will confirm it as soon as they're able to."

Peggy keeps the shock off her face: she's amazed the USSR resisted collapse, even without a unified Hydra to keep the Cold War running. Officially, Hydra doesn't exist: she knows better than to bring it up even in the Oval Office. "How large was the weapon?"

"One point three megatons," says Phillips. "They're very proud."

"I bet they are," says Eisenhower, drumming his fingers. "Krushchev refused to even consider my proposal for mutual surveillance, and we lose another country to the Communists every year."

 _Yes,_ thinks Peggy bitterly, _heaven forbid you have to get the CIA to back another coup overseas_. Cuba had been quick to change hands: they had nationalized every single American-owned industrial asset in the country and severed ties with the States entirely three years back during their own coup against President Carlos Prio. At least Zaldivar was backed by America, though who knew what the next years would bring? "Thank heaven McCarthy's losing his bite, at least. I hear we have you and Dulles to thank for that."

"Privately, Director," says Eisenhower. "I will not allow myself to get dragged down into the mud with that man. Nothing would please him more than a public repudiation by the President of the United States." He sighs.

The doors open and Allen Dulles strides in. The director of the CIA is a white-haired, mustached man with wire-rimmed glasses who gives Peggy gooseflesh up her arms: here is the mastermind behind Operation Ajax and Operation PBSUCCESS. Iran, Guatemala: both had fallen because of Allen Dulles.

"Here are the surveillance photographs," he says, handing Eisenhower a folder full. "They're not being shy about it in the slightest." Behind his spectacles, his eyes slip across Peggy and Phillips: he views SHIELD as ridiculous and unneeded and makes no secret about it, either. "How's motherhood, Director Carter?"

She thinly smiles back at him. "Well, if I was given a choice between supervising a three year old boy or the Soviets, I should choose the Soviets."

Dulles shrugs. "I'm sure your… husband approves." It's also no secret that most of her peers think she's utterly backwards: what sort of woman in this day and age makes her husband watch the children at home while she goes to work? Being single and working was one thing: being married, and being married with one child and another on the way is quite a different thing entirely. Peggy tries not to break the pencil she has clasped in her hand, and stares straight ahead at the photographs on the President's desk.

"Negotiations have all failed," says Eisenhower, pushing the pictures aside. "The only thing we can do is work on our own weapons. This is no longer a disarmament conflict. It's about arms control now. We have our spies, and they have theirs."

"Sir, I really—" Dulles looks as if he's going to propose something else, and Eisenhower shakes his head.

"No. It's Thanksgiving tomorrow. Go home, all of you. There's nothing more to discuss. I'm sorry you all had to come in early." Eisenhower stands, and they all move toward the doors, Peggy the last to leave. "Oh, and Director Carter?"

"Sir?" She pauses.

"Best wishes." He offers a small smile, and she nods politely, then ducks out, hurrying in a half-waddle toward Phillips' departing back.

* * *

"C'mon, James," says Steve, trying to wrangle the toddler into a shirt. "We're going to the jewelers. Nice sparkly stuff, huh?"

"Don' wan' _shirt!_ " shrieks James, wriggling. His blond hair stands out in a fluff around his flushed face, eyelashes spiky with tears. " _Noooo,_ Daddy—"

"You gotta wear clothes when you go out," Steve informs him, feeling exhausted. "You want to put on your brown shoes or your black ones?"

James pauses, thinking. "Bwack," he says, his soft palate unable to say L or R very well.

"Okay. Go get them for me? We'll put them on you." Steve watches his son charge to his room for the shoes, and rubs his temples. He still has to drop by the grocery store, do something about the dishes piling up in the sink, and at least attempt to tidy up the place before Peggy comes home. _Can Howard invent a machine that gives me eight more hours in a day?_

James comes hurtling back with his brown shoes. "Shoes!" he crows.

"Oh, you want the brown ones now?"

"No! _Bwack!_ " James looks down at his hands and begins to wail again, seemingly deeply offended that the brown shoes are not, in fact, the black ones.

"Hey, come on, pal," says Steve desperately, trying to wrestle the shoes out of his son's chubby fists. "We can go get the black ones—"

"Nooo! Want _dese_ bwack!"

"What?"

After some more sobbing, it becomes clear that James wants the brown shoes to become the black ones, and not to just go and get the other shoes from his room. It's almost as bad as the time he flung himself onto the sidewalk crying because his shirt wasn't blue like Daddy's, and Steve sits back and buries his head in his hands, exhausted.

The doorbell rings, and James, startled out of his tantrum, jumps up. "Door?"

"I'll get it," says Steve, and puts one hand on the table by the front door that holds the Colt .45: locked, of course, tightly enough to bar James from getting into it but loose enough that Steve can yank it open in a tight spot.

"I get it," echoes James, and looks up as Steve opens the door, revealing Michael and Anna. "Unca _Mike_!" he shrieks in delight, and Anna waves.

"Hi, Uncle Steve!" she chirps.

"Well, hi!" Steve opens the door and lets them in. "What brings you over here?"

"We thought we might assist you in getting everything you need for Thanksgiving," says Michael, leaning on his cane with a smile. There are some silver threads at the corners of his temples, and Anna's grown at least a foot and a half: she's ten now and shooting up like a weed.

"That's great. Thank you. I have to take Peggy's watch to the jewelers; James tried to flush it down the toilet and it's stopped."

"Excellent. Divide and conquer, as they say." Michael smiles. "We'll take care of Thanksgiving dinner preparations and you can rush to the shop."

"And I can watch James," Anna says brightly, hurrying over to tickle her cousin, who shrieks in glee.

"We've already got most of the stuff. I don’t know why we decided to host it over here," Steve tells Michael, who smiles. "I still can't cook a turkey to save my life."

"I'm sure between us we can work it out," says Michael. "Let Peg put her feet up a bit."

"When's Aunt Peggy going to have the baby?" Anna wants to know, as she amuses herself by crawling around on the floor with James.

"She's at thirty-five weeks, so probably in another month." Steve rubs his neck: they've cleared out a space in the other bedroom for a second nursery, and James hasn't been too happy about being barred from entering his old playroom.

"I hope it's a girl. I want a girl cousin." Anna looks wistful.

"Who's on the list for tomorrow?" Michael asks, following Steve into the kitchen as he takes inventory of the pantry and fridge.

"You, Anna, me, James, Peggy, and Bucky. Plus a possible plus-one for Bucky, though I'm not sure yet—what with the rate he's going." Steve frowns to himself. Bucky's been extremely opaque about his romantic endeavors to Steve, uncharacteristically so, but Steve's been so busy trying to wrangle his kid on a day-to-day basis that he hasn't had the time to really it down and ask the man what's going on.

"Unca Bucky?" James has caught the name, and darts into the kitchen, staring up at Steve with big brown eyes. "Where Unca Bucky?"

"Coming tomorrow, silly," says Anna, ruffling his hair. "For Thanksgiving. Uncle Steve, what are you going to name the baby?"

"Well," says Steve, thinking. "Your aunt likes Jacqueline for a girl because it's sophisticated, but I thought maybe Sarah, for my mother. If it's another boy, maybe Charles, after the Prince of Wales."

"I can babysit," says Anna eagerly, and Michael chuckles.

"Not for a while, dear. Very small babies need their mothers."

"Once the baby's big enough that you can look after it, you can babysit," promises Steve. "How's school going?"

Anna sighs. "We had to learn about _fractions_ last week before we went on break for the holiday, and I hate fractions."

Steve grins as Michael starts writing busily on a list. "You need them for cooking, though. You ever tried to double a recipe without fractions?"

"No," says Anna dubiously, but she looks interested. "How d'you do it, then?"

"Say you have a recipe that calls for half a cup of sugar. You have to double the recipe. How much sugar do you need?"

"A half…and another half…" Anna screws her face up. "A whole cup?"

"Right! And if the recipe calls for a quarter cup of blueberries and you have to double that?"

"A…oh, a half a cup!"

"Congratulations. You've just learned fractions." Steve grins and tugs on her braid, and she giggles. "All right. Don't let James burn the house down while I'm gone. You're in charge. I'll come back and we can go grocery-shopping."

"Won't Aunt Peggy be surprised," says Anna, grinning.

* * *

Steve escapes to the jewelers with Peggy's watch, only realizing on his way back to the car that he has a sock stuck to his slacks and a smear of wet oatmeal from breakfast staining his shirt. Ah, the magic of parenthood. James Rogers had entered the world screaming his lungs out at Walter Reed three years prior and it seemed he had never stopped since.

Privately, Steve's still put out at the maternity ward for not allowing him into the room when his son had been born. Peggy had been put under with general anesthesia and barely recalled any of the birth at all until the point at which James had been thrust into her arms, as was typical, and Steve hadn't gotten to see them until almost an hour after the birth. His nerves had been a wreck, but he'd laughed when a nurse had told him that his newborn son was already strong enough to try to roll over in his hospital crib.

At three, James was already taller than most of his peers, and had passed all his physical milestones much earlier than normal. He ate as much as a six-year old, and never held on to most of his baby fat except when he was gearing up for a growth spurt, which he seemed to do almost every other week. The only developmental milestones he hit at an ordinary rate, apparently, were speech-related.

He puts the car into gear and drives back to the house, trying to keep track of their schedule. One more week until Peggy goes on what she refers to as House Arrest, another month until Baby Two arrives. They've been scheduled to check in at Walter Reed as soon as her labor starts, and Michael's already volunteered to watch James for as long as it takes. He'll pick up the watch on Tuesday, since they can't get to it earlier on account of the holiday.

Sometimes he really misses smartphones. Steve would never admit it to anyone in a million years , but being able to get in contact with someone across town while you're walking down the street was a convenience and a curse all in one, and today he's leaning more toward _convenience._ James is probably tearing up the house right about now, and he'd like an update.

He pulls into the drive and heads up the walk, only to be tackled around the knees by James as he walks through the door. " _Daddyyyy!"_

 "Hey, sport," says Steve, swinging James off his feet and giving him a hug. Anna's running toward them both, beaming. "How's the kitchen inventory going?"

"Good! We just need pie crust. Dad?"

Michael steps out of the kitchen. "Pie crust and cherry filling," he amends. "And celery for the stuffing: I've already set the bread out to dry. Off we go, then!"

* * *

Between the three of them (Anna insists on helping by keeping James out of their hair and tidying the living room) they get the house shipshape and the dinner going, and when Peggy walks in to a chorus of "Surprise!" she feigns a heart attack and beams, hugging her niece and then her brother.

"Good Lord. You're hardly even dinner guests if you've made it all yourself," she says, sinking onto the sofa and toeing out of her pumps.

"Uncle Bucky will be, anyway," says Anna, "and even Jamie helped. He got me the cherry cans."

"I help!" says Jamie importantly.

"Good for you, darling," says Peggy, and kisses him on the head. "Gracious. I feel almost badly that you have to leave."

"Not to worry. See you around noon tomorrow, and don't you lift a finger if you can help it." Michael squeezes his sister's shoulder and she smiles up at him.

"You know me, Michael. Always finding something to do."

"I leave her in your charge," says Michael, grinning at Steve, and leaves with Anna in tow, the girl skipping down the walk in the evening dusk in front of her father.

"Missed you," says Steve, kissing her on the lips. "Dinner's just sandwiches and soup. Jamie's already had his." He hands her a tray. "Eat up."

"I ought to get him to bed," says Peggy, making to push herself out of the sofa's embrace.

"No, you stay there and eat. I'll get him to bed and make you some tea." Steve wags his finger at her, making her smile and roll her eyes, but she stays put as he takes Jamie to the toilet, then to brush his teeth, then to bed. He's a good sleeper, thank heavens, so it's only about thirty minutes before Steve brings her a cup of tea and they're blissfully alone in the living room.

"You've got oatmeal on your shirt," she says, mouth struggling not to laugh.

"Yeah," he says, looking down ruefully. "I'll just take that off and put it in the wash."

"Go on, then," she says, looking at him mischievously over the rim of her cup.

Steve unbuttons his shirt, stripping out of it right there in the living room and peeling off his undershirt for good measure. He doesn't miss the way her cheeks stain rose, or her eyes dilate. He remembers when she was pregnant with James, and how terrified he'd been to touch her at first, even though she'd been practically climbing him with the rush of hormones flooding her body, desperate to share his bed. He'd gotten over his fear of hurting the baby in the second trimester, right around the time Peggy had almost broken down in tears begging him to touch her.

Things had…changed, for her and her body, and not just due to pregnancy. The serum had made her more receptive, more sensitive, and able to handle far more than she'd previously been able to, and—well. Steve wasn't complaining, and neither was she.

Standing on the carpet in the living room, Steve fights a memory: Peggy's creamy back stretched out before him, her hands clinging to the headboard; listening to the wet noises coming from where their bodies were joined as the headboard smashed into the wall over and over again. He's hard just thinking about it.

"Steve," she whispers, and he looks up, eyes meeting hers as if they're magnets. "Take me to bed."

"Yes, ma'am," he whispers roughly.

* * *

She manages to get her shoes off before Steve's on her, mouth hungrily moving across hers as he pushes her gently back to the bed until she plops down heavily on the comforter. "My clothes—"

"I'll get them," he promises, and he does: undressing her with the utmost care, pulling off her skirt, her enormous, tent-like blouse, her brassiere, her stockings. She shivers in the chill of the room, and he gently cups his hand around her belly.

She's so sensitive. Her doctor had mentioned something about increased bloodflow, but that seems to translate into _I might just split out of my skin_ _at the lightest touch_. "Steve," she whimpers.

"I've got you," he tells her, and kisses her again, hands stroking gently down her arms. "You just tell me."

Why on earth is she already so aroused? "I need—" Peggy takes a breath and puts one of his hands clumsily between her legs: she hasn't been able to see anything down there for weeks. "Please, Steve."

"Hmm," he says, rubbing at her briefs gently, and she moans, her thighs tightening. "You already all wet for me, sweetheart?"

Baby Two chooses that moment to ram into her bladder. "Bloody hell," she gasps.

"Peggy?"

"Nothing—baby's decided to use my insides as a punching bag." Peggy presses down on the top of her belly. "You stop that," she orders, and frowns as a lump shifts from one side of her stomach to the other, visible under her skin. "Lord."

Steve laughs. "Come on. Lay down on your side."

"But I wanted—"

"I know what you wanted," he whispers, kissing her cheek. "Side. You'll like it."

Peggy maneuvers herself to lie on her side, shivering a little as Steve inches her briefs down and off, then sighs as he lies down, her back pressed to his chest, and fumbles with his cock, which is pressed hard and ready against her backside. "I'll like it, will I?" She's only ever tried a hands-and-knees position in any stage of advanced pregnancy, but Steve seems to know what he's doing.

"I think so. Hold still." His fingers spread her a little, and she stiffens, then moans softly as his cock slots perfectly into her, both of them on their sides. He's warm and full and perfect, taking the edge off her need for him, and there is no pain at all, not like this.

"Oh—yes, I do think I like this—"

"And now," says Steve, slightly strained, as he begins to rock gently, one hand curled around her hip. The drag and thrust makes her shudder and muffle a cry into her own hand. "There. Are your—your breasts, are they—"

"You c-can touch them," she whispers, so he does: takes an ample handful of tender flesh and buries his face in her neck. "S-Steve—"

"Yeah?"

She reaches back and cups his backside, one hand squeezing him tight. He yelps and thrusts a little harder. "That's better," Peggy says breathlessly, and it is: a few short minutes later and she's spent, contentedly lying on her side in the post-orgasmic glow as Steve grunts and finishes, panting heavily.

"You must think I'm a great cow," she says, eyeing her belly ruefully.

"Absolutely not," he says, when he can find his voice. "You're my wife. You're beautiful. And I love you."

She rolls over and settles herself on her left side, propping her head up as he gets out of bed and fetches her a nightgown. "You really are the best husband anyone could ask for," she tells him, pulling it over her head.

Steve yanks on his pajama pants and climbs into bed. "Just doing my job," he teases, and kisses her on the forehead as he pulls the covers up to his chin. "Big day tomorrow."

"Mama," whispers a voice, and Peggy jerks upright in startled surprise to see Jamie, rubbing his eyes and looking very put out. "Bad dweam."

"Oh, darling, I'm so sorry," she says quickly. Lord, they ought to put a lock on the door.

"I've got it," says Steve, sliding out of bed.

"No!" demands Jamie, lip quivering. "Wan' Mama!"

"I'm coming," Peggy says, and slips out, taking her son by the hand. "I'll be back in a jiffy," she promises Steve, and takes James back to his room, sitting down awkwardly on the small bed as he climbs back in. "Whatever was your nightmare about, Jamie?"

He shakes his head, teary-eyed, and cuddles up on his side, thumb plopped securely in his mouth. "Mama hold," he says around the digit.

"I wish I could," she says, patting her belly. "Baby makes it a little difficult, though." She strokes his hair: it's darkening slightly from its childhood white-blond to something around Steve's light brown, prone to blondness in the sun. "Shall I stay until you feel better?"

"Baby," says James, eyeing her stomach balefully. "No baby. Just Jamie."

Peggy smiles. "I'm afraid there will be a baby, Jamie. Remember? You were so excited to have a little brother or sister?" Beneath her sternum, the baby kicks, and she pats her belly. "Do you want to feel Baby kicking?"

Jamie's face scrunches up, but curiosity gets the better of him, and he reaches out his little hand, feeling as Peggy repositions his palm. "There!" she whispers, as a tiny foot kicks up, and James' mouth drops open into a little O of astonishment. "There's Baby."

"When Baby?" When Baby, indeed, thinks Peggy: she's quite ready to get back to her _real_ job.

"Soon. About a month. D'you know how long a month is?"

"No," he says, hand still pressed to her belly, entranced by the tiny kicks.

"Well. About four weeks. That's twenty-eight days. So about twenty-seven more sleeps for you, darling, and Baby will be here."

"Baby inside Mama. Daddy said." He hugs her belly, cheek pressed to her nightgown, and she smiles, patting his head.

"Yes, in a special place inside Mama."

"How Baby get out?" he demands suddenly, popping his head up.

Peggy manages to keep a straight face. "Well," she says. "Mama will go to the hospital and the nice doctors there will help Baby come out. And after that, I'll come home, with Baby, and you can get to know each other."

"Oh," he says, and giggles again as Baby kicks at his hand.

"But for now," says Peggy, tucking him back in, "it's time for you to get some sleep."

"Night-night," he says, eyes already heavy and drooping.

"Night-night, Jamie," she whispers, and tiptoes out as his breathing evens into soft, slow sleep.

By the time she gets back into their bedroom, Steve is out like a light: still propped up against the headboard with a book in his hands, but head tilted back and mouth open, breathing softly. He resembles his son to such an astonishing degree when they're both unconscious that Peggy nearly laughs aloud, but keeps herself quiet and turns off Steve's light, easing him back down to lie flat.

He snuffles and rolls over. "G'night, Peggy," he whispers, and she kisses him on the cheek.

"Good night, my darling."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes!  
> -Maternity wear in the 50s was abysmal. Pregnant women were sort of expected to stay out of sight once they started showing, and they had to sew these huge blouses at home and skirts with the belly cut out in the front, because you just didn't buy maternity clothing off-the-rack. Lucille Ball was the first woman to be pregnant on TV in I Love Lucy in 1953 and CBS demanded that they not use the word "pregnant" on television and say "expecting" instead.  
> -Mamie Eisenhower is single-handedly responsible for every pink tiled bathroom you see from the 50s. "Mamie Pink" was to the fifties what Farmhouse Chic is to the twenty-teens.  
> -The Dulles brothers (one who worked as head of the CIA, seen here, and the other, John Foster Dulles, who was the head of the State Department) were...definitely something else. Look them up on Wikipedia sometime. Woof.  
> -I'm making liberal use of time jumps just because if I don't I'll never be done with this fic. SORRY.


	25. December 16, 1955

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: childbirth!

Peggy wakes in the middle of the night feeling as if she's wet herself, and sits up, sleepy and confused. A hand between her legs confirms it: the bed is damp. _What?_

"Steve," she whispers at the snoring hulk beside her. "Steve!"

"Wh—what?" he mutters, coming awake and blinking like some sleepy animal disturbed from its nest. "Peggy?"

"I think—I think my waters have broken." She's not exactly panicking like she did the first time: she knows it will be a bit before anything of real consequence starts to happen, and by then she'll be in the hospital. There is a dull ache in her lower back, but it's not bad.

Steve sits straight up and flings the covers off. "Shoot. I'll call Michael to take Jamie—"

Peggy shakes her head. "Don't bother. He's out of town; we didn't think anything was going to happen for another week. My due date was _Christmas,_ for heaven's sake."

"I'll call Bucky, then." Steve's already out of bed and shoving his feet into his slippers, and she swings her own feet out, searching for hers. "Hey—don't get up—"

"I'm fine," she says curtly. "I'm not going to give birth in five minutes. Honestly, Steve."

"The bag? Hospital bag?" He looks like a frantic mother hen, hair sticking up and sleepy-eyed.

"Still in the foyer. Don't have a cow, darling." She's oddly calm, actually, and that's when the contraction comes out of nowhere and hits her hard, gripping her in a vise from belly to chest. There's not much she can do but ride it out, gritting her teeth, and when she relaxes, able to breathe again, Steve's already in the kitchen, talking quietly into the receiver.

Peggy hoists herself to her feet and hesitates, wondering what on earth _that_ had been. She presses a hand to her belly and doesn't feel much movement: is that bad? No, it must be good, she had read somewhere that babies were engaged in a head-down position at the very end, and everything had been seemingly progressing perfectly at her last exam.

Her back is really aching. She wants that morphine like she's never wanted anything in her life. She hadn't cared at all that they'd put her under for the entire process last time, although someone had offhandedly mentioned that she'd been hallucinating that the nurses were all Johann Schmidt during it. "Crikey," she mutters as another contraction grips her in the hallway on the way to Jamie's room. She has to pause, both hands on the wall in a brace, for nearly a minute until it passes.

That can't be good. She'd been admitted last time at—God, what had it been? Five minutes apart? That had barely been two minutes.

"Peggy?" Steve's behind her, anxiously shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"I don't think," she manages, trying to breathe, "we have time to get to Walter Reed."

"What?" He sounds more concerned than horrified, which she rather expected coming from Steve Rogers, and not an ordinary man. "Bucky will be over as fast as he can. Do you want to—uh—go back to bed?"

"Bathroom," she says tightly as yet another contraction seizes her in its stranglehold, leaving her panting for air and clinging to Steve with both hands. "Oh, God." She reaches under her nightgown, hand coming up stained with blood-tinged sticky mucus. "Steve—"

"Don't panic," says Steve quickly, wrapping his arm around her back and guiding her toward the bathroom. "I'll stay with you. I'll—I'll call an ambulance."

"They won't be able to get here soon enough," Peggy says through gritted teeth. "The roads are iced over."

"Then they'll get here when they get here," says Steve, determined and steadfast. He gets her into the bathroom in their bedroom and she kneels on the bathmat to protect her knees from the tile as another contraction hits. She sucks down air, gasping as it lets up, and Steve rubs her back.

"Jamie—"

"Jamie's fine," he assures her. "Still sleeping like a rock. Don't worry about him."

"If he sees any of this, he'll be scarred for life." Peggy's already sweating, and she grips the edge of the tub, shutting her eyes. A low moan escapes her mouth, drawn-out and primal. "Oh, my back's _killing_ me."

"Do you want me to check you and see what's uh, going on down there?" Steve sounds reassuring, but not very sure of himself.

"You might as well." Peggy can't remember the first thing about stages of labor at the moment, but Steve had devoured every book about childbirth he could get his hands on when she'd told him she was expecting Jamie, and he has a mind like a steel trap.

"Okay. Legs apart for me." She obeys, and grits her teeth as another contraction wracks her muscles with pain. "Uh, Peggy?"

"What?" she demands.

"Remember how you said you weren't going to give birth in five minutes?" He's already taking off his shirt, spreading it across his knees.

"Wh—yes?"

There's a knock on the front door, and Steve jerks upright. "That'll be Bucky. Shit. Don't move. If you have another contraction, do _not_ push."

"What?" Peggy twists around, but he's already gone, racing for the hallway, and she pants lightly, trying to breathe. "Steve Rogers, don't you _dare_ leave me alone in th— _oh—_ " This time, she does feel the urge to push, and she fights it madly, a horrible sound escaping her throat as Steve comes back in. "Where—Bucky—"

"He's in the hallway to make sure James doesn’t come out and make a beeline for our room." Steve kneels again, and peers up her nightgown. "Oh, fuck," he says, and that's such an unexpected word coming from him that Peggy immediately panics.

"What? What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Baby's coming now. Right now. Buck! I need you to get in here!"

"Steven Grant Rogers, if you bring James Buchanan Barnes in here while I am _laboring_ I swear to God—"

Bucky comes at once, looking wild-eyed and sleep-deprived. "Stevie?" His eyes track to Peggy, and he looks horrified. "Oh, Jesus—"

"Not a word from _you_ ," she spits, fully aware of how she must look but past the pint of giving a damn. "How can the baby be coming _now_?"

Steve looks as if his mind is going a million miles a minute. "Dunno, but I know a head when I see it. Buck, I need you to get into the tub. Peggy, when you can, you're gonna sit on the edge of the tub and let Bucky hold onto you, and I'm gonna—" he lets out a breath, as if preparing for battle. "I'm gonna get this taken care of."

"What about Jamie?" gasps Peggy as Bucky shucks his shoes and climbs into the bathtub. "If he wakes up—"

"Then he wakes up," says Steve, crouching down as she staggers up and turns about, her nightgown like a sweaty second skin as she sits firmly propped up against Bucky's chest. She spreads her legs, and Steve peers up her nightgown again, then gently reaches up. "Okay. Baby's in the birth canal. Let me see. Sweetheart, if you have another contraction, don't push yet."

"All right," she pants, and he gently, _gently_ rubs at her below-decks, making her squirm as she clings to Bucky's arm. "Christ Almighty." Another contraction rips through her, and she can't help but push a tiny bit, choking in pain. _Morphine, please, anything._

"You can do it, Carter," says Bucky, her fingernails digging into his arm.

"I can't," she pants, as Steve uses both hands to do something with his discarded shirt. "Oh, God. Steve. I changed my mind. I'm going back to bed; we can try again tomorrow—"

"Head's out," he says softly. "Okay. I need you to push."

She pushes and pushes, face feeling like it's going to swell up, and inch by inch she feels the thing in her body moving, agonizingly slowly. "What—what's happening?" she gasps as she stops to breathe.

Steve looks up. "You're doing great. Head's out, and one shoulder. I'm gonna let gravity help you with some of the work. Can you—Buck, get her forward a little—"

Bucky leans with her gently, and Peggy straddles across her husband's lap on bent legs. "Steve—" She's so frightened: this is nothing like the hospital, nothing like it was  _supposed_ to be. "I can't do it," she sobs.

"It's going to be okay." He looks up, blue eyes shining, and Peggy knows she can do anything, anything at all as long as he's close by. "Buck won't let you fall. You'll be fine. Okay. Push!"

Peggy bears down with all her strength and screams like an oncoming train as the other shoulder slowly, then quickly escapes the boundary of her own body, and then Steve is grinning up at her, cradling a purple-blue newborn wrapped in his T-shirt and smeared with blood and vernix. The cord wiggles around as the baby takes its first breath and begins to cry, tiny _eh-eh-eh_ noises, and she nearly collapses into Bucky, sobbing in relief as the purple-blue color of its skin brightens to red and pink.

"Ho-lee shit," says Bucky, lowering her down to the tile as carefully as he can with one arm. "That was the craziest thing I've ever seen."

"What—what is it?" Peggy demands past her tears. "A girl or a boy?"

"I—I forgot to check," says Steve, looking stricken, and Bucky laughs as he unwraps the baby, peering down past the umbilical cord. "A girl. It's a girl!"

"A girl?" Peggy doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she does both. "It's a girl? Really?"

"Really! I—here, hold her. Buck, can you call an ambulance?"

"Sure. And I'll check and see if Jamie woke up." He grins down at Peggy and slaps Steve on the back. "Steve Rogers, midwife. I'll be damned."

Peggy pulls down her sodden nightgown and cradles the squalling infant to her chest. "She's so ugly," she manages, half-asleep with exhaustion. "Oh, she's like a little old man."

"James was, too. You just don't remember." Steve can't stop smiling.

Another, less severe contraction, and the placenta slithers out from between her legs. Steve cuts the cord with the scissors Peggy normally uses for trimming hair, and kneels down next to mother and daughter as the infant stops squalling and opens her eyes.

"I remember James had blue eyes, too," says Peggy, stroking the girl's wet head with a finger. "Sort of a storm-blue, and then they turned brown. Hers are so bright."

"Maybe she'll have my eyes," says Steve, smiling. "We'll have to watch as her face irons out a little."

"I think… James has your shape and my color." Peggy strokes the baby through his T-shirt and smiles. "She might have my shape and your color."

"Ambulance is on the way," says Bucky, poking his head in. "And Jamie's awake."

"Oh, dear," says Peggy. "He ought to come in so he knows everything's all right when the ambulance comes. How do I look?"

Steve looks at her, all sweaty hair and flushed face and dry lips, and smiles. "You look beautiful."

"Here." Bucky lays a towel across her lap, covering most of the blood and the afterbirth, then turns around and pokes his head out the door. "Okay. Jamie, c'mon in and meet your sister."

Jamie stumbles in, scrubbing at his eye with a fist, and his eyes fix on the bundle in his mother's arms. "Mama?" he inquires, blinking sleepily. "Mama, izzat _baby_?"

"Yes, darling. Will you come say hello?" Peggy smiles, reaching out her free hand, and he cuddles close, staring with awe at the crumpled, red face of the newborn in her arm. "You have got a sister. What do you think we should name her?"

"Baby Jamie," he says instantly, earning a laugh from Bucky.

"No, silly. That's your name already, and anyway we need a girl's name." Peggy kisses him on the forehead. "How about Sarah? Do you like that?"

"Sawah," he tries. "Baby Sawah?"

"Baby Sarah," says Steve, tears in his eyes. "Sarah Jacqueline?"

"God, no. Whatever was I thinking?" Peggy rocks the baby. "Sarah… Elizabeth."

"Sarah Elizabeth Rogers," says Bucky, sounding choked up. "Luckiest gal in the world's just been born to the best parents she could ask for."

"Unca Bucky cwying?" James whips his head around.

"Yeah, pal. I'm just really happy. Sometimes grownups cry when they're happy." Bucky wipes his eyes. "I'll, uh, go stand on the walk and wave down the ambulance when it gets here."

* * *

After a ride to Walter Reed Memorial on the icy roads going about twenty miles an hour the entire way, mother and baby are pronounced healthy. Sarah is already able to lift her own head, to the nurses' great astonishment, and Steve handwaves it off by saying it runs in the family. She's also possessed of an almighty pair of lungs, and puts them to great use, screaming her head off in the nursery in fury when separated from her mother.

"You've got a regular little crusader here," says the neonatal physician, smiling at Peggy as she looks through the glass of the observing window. "Heck of a Christmas present, huh?"

"Oh, Lord," says Peggy. "I'd nearly forgotten we were supposed to call Michael and tell him. How are we going to do Christmas dinner now?"

"Just bring everyone over. You don't have to entertain. Just take Sarah into the bedroom if you want. I'll handle it." Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"You know," she says, comfortably resting her head on his shoulder, "you really are an excellent husband."

"Glad to hear it," Steve says, kissing her on the head.

* * *

Christmas is a jolly affair, and Peggy spends most of it in their bedroom, cradling Sarah in her arms, feeding her, and changing her nappies. Steve comes in bringing food and drinks every hour, it seems, and she certainly appreciates that: breastfeeding takes quite a lot out of one.

"Why don't you use formula this time around?" the nurse at the ward had asked her brightly, and Peggy had shot her a glare that sent her scurrying for the nurses' station. Really, Americans would feed their newborns _anything_ some company claimed did one thing or the other: she was English, and in England breast was best—that was quite good enough for Peggy. She'd stop at a few months like she had with Jamie, supplement with formula, and go back to work as soon as she could.

There's a knock on the door just past two, and Anna comes in with Steve, beaming and bearing presents. "Can I see her?" she stage-whispers, looking down in fascination at the shapeless bundle in Peggy's arms. Steve leaves the door ajar, kisses Peggy, and heads back to the kitchen, the faint noises of laughter and the radio wafting in through the crack.

"Yes, of course, darling," says Peggy, patting the bed. Anna sets the presents down and climbs up beside her, looking down at Sarah's little face in delight. Slowly, however, her face changes to worry.

"You're not going to put her in a school, are you?" she asks anxiously, looking up at Peggy. "Like me?"

"Gracious, no," says Peggy. "When she's old enough to attend school she'll go, but not a school like you attended in Russia." She has to be a little careful: Anna has progressed well, but they had hardly been able to find a psychologist who took Michael's concerns seriously for nearly a year. One had outright laughed at them and told Michael that children were resilient, and their brains did not hold to traumatic experiences the way adults did. Steve had had quite a lot to say about that, none of it good—so they had found a very modern doctor squirreled away in D.C. and Anna attends a therapy session monthly with her, in between her beloved ballet classes.

"You won't…handcuff her to the crib," says Anna hesitantly, stroking the baby's chubby wrist with a finger.

"Never," promises Peggy. "I'm her mother. I should never do such a thing."

Anna's brows draw together. "But my mother…she didn't stop them," she says, lip trembling a little. "Why didn't my mother stop them?"

They had tried to avoid the topic of Yelena, but it seems to keep coming up, especially as Anna got older. Peggy sighs. "My darling girl. Have you asked your father?"

"Papa says—Dad, I mean—" That's another little idiosyncrasy: she refers to her father as _Papa_ when she's having a bad day, and as _Dad_ when she's having a good one. "He said she loved me, and won't tell me anything else." Big gray eyes meet Peggy's. "I wouldn't tell anyone if I knew. Honest."

"I know you wouldn't," says Peggy, rocking Sarah as she begins to fuss and turn her head, looking for a nipple. "Oh, dear."

"You can feed her, it's okay," says Anna, looking at her hands. "I know how babies eat. I saw them in the nursery at—at—"

"Did you?" says Peggy, pulling down her nightgown and popping Sarah onto her breast. The baby sucks greedily, tiny fists mashed into her flesh. "Were the ladies wet-nurses?"

"I think so." Anna frowns. "I just remember all the baby girls in their cribs, and sometimes a big nurse would have two on her, like this." She gestures, cupping her hands in front of her skinny chest. "Does it hurt?"

"Not at all. Well, if she bites, perhaps a bit." Peggy strokes Sarah's fuzzy head.

"I wish I could ask my mama," she says wistfully.

Peggy decides honesty is better than nothing: how would she feel if she was ten and had no idea who her mother was? "Your mother," she says gently, "was very smart and kind in her own way. I'll have you know she almost killed me when we met the first time."

Anna's all ears and glowing eyes, mouth open. "She _did_? You knew her?"

Peggy nods. "I met her. She was in charge of taking care of Mr. Barnes when he was the Asset. She thought I had hurt a friend of hers, and—well, she was afraid Mr. Barnes would hurt someone as he was—well, he wasn't very well back then, you see."

"Back—you mean before Uncle Steve came to the school?"

"Yes. She loved your papa very much, Anna." Peggy reaches her free hand out and cups the girl's cheek: as she grows older, Yelena Belova's cheekbones and nose are emerging from her face. "You look like her."

"I _do?"_ Anna scrambles off the bed and goes for the hand mirror on Peggy's vanity. "Where?"

"Everything that isn't your father," teases Peggy. "You have his eye color, but your mama's eyes were blue. You have her hair, too, and you'll likely be as tall as her. And her mouth: your papa has a very thin mouth and you don't."

Anna turns the mirror back and forth, marveling at her own face. "Is she dead?" she asks.

"We don't know for sure," says Peggy softly.

"But if she's not dead, why hasn't she come to me and Papa?"

"It's not because she doesn't love you," says Peggy. "She did. She _does_. Very much, like any mother would love their child. But to keep you safe, you had to be a secret, and your mama—she was hurt sometimes by the people who were in charge of her, and they made her forget about you and your papa. The love was always there, my darling. She only forgot it because she was hurt."

"What if I grow up and she doesn't know me?" Anna whispers, looking as if she might cry.

"Of course she'll know you if she comes to find you," says Peggy. "Don't you worry about that for a moment. And in the meantime, you have me, and you have Sarah for a girl-cousin once she grows up a little. She might be a sort of sister, if you like."

Anna looks up. "Could anyone make you forget Sarah?"

The question sends a chill through Peggy. "Are you asking because you're afraid someone might?"

"No… I just wondered." Anna looks down at the baby, small and warm and fragile.

"I would like to say no," says Peggy gently. "But I've seen what bad people can do, and I'm afraid someone might indeed be able to make me forget people I love."

Anna considers that and nods. "So she really did love me. She just forgot because of bad people."

Peggy nods. "Precisely. And let us hope no bad people ever try it again. Now, what about these presents you brought in for me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES.  
> -Breastfeeding and maternal care has a very long and fascinating story in the States. It can best be summarized by a story my mom likes to tell that goes like this: "When I had you in 1992, breastfeeding was back in, and when your grandmother--your dad's mom, Pat--came to help me after I had you, there was nothing she wanted so much as to give you a bottle of formula and feed you. She nagged and nagged me for days but I told her I was absolutely not putting you on formula and that was that. She thought breastfeeding wasn't hygienic because back in the late fifties when she had your father and uncles and aunt, the doctors told her that formula was a cleaner and easier option. But they also told her smoking was fine during pregnancy because she'd have smaller babies and have easier deliveries. That's likely why your dad has health problems."  
> -I do not recommend home births with your super-soldier husband and his one-armed best friend as the attending midwife and assistant, even if they've both read every childbirth book known to man.


	26. November 21, 1963

"Focus. What is your name?"

The question is low, dry and firm: as inflectionless as a recording. The doctor is gentle, always gentle. She blinks in the bright light: what was her name? She is sure she had one. "I do not know."

"Your name is Natalie Russell. You are an American." He is so kind, so understanding: this must be so.

"My name is Natalie Russell," she repeats. "I am an American."  _I am a blank slate. I am perfect. I am porcelain and diamond and marble._

"You have been briefed on your mission." A finger rubs a ring, slow and careful.

"I have been briefed on my mission." She has: she remembers that. A trip to America, a rare treat: an opportunity—no, not an opportunity, she has a mission, why did she think of that word?

"When you return, you will be lauded as a hero of the Soviet Union." Her faceless superior slips her a suitcase across the metal table separating them. "Your gear. You will be extracted from your point as soon as the job is done. Do not fail."

"I never fail," she says, and her fingers close around the handle of the suitcase.

* * *

Bucky Barnes meets Peggy Carter in Stark's lab. Stark is spending more time between here and a facility in New Jersey: there's some young scientist they've recruited out of the Army splitting his time between there and here and Stark never shuts up about him. Between this new guy—what's his name? Pam? Pin?—and the newly-defected Anton Vanko, SHIELD's going to win the arms race, and possibly the Space Race. President Kennedy has never been more thrilled about his re-election prospects, even with the Bay of Pigs looming over his presidency as a failure.

"Nice to see you again," she says, stripping out of her suit. They'd officially rebranded her as _Union Jane_ , which just…had not caught on, so everyone just called her Captain America even though she loathed being referred to as "Cap" as she wasn't actually a member of the armed forces. There wasn't anyone else equipped to deal with Hydra's scattered members, however, so off she went when needed.

"How was Vietnam?" Bucky catches a small object she throws to him and gives it a look. It's definitely stolen SHIELD tech: battered and rusty.

"Muggy. There's Item 41. Had to snatch it right out of Hydra's hands." She grins. "I think the poor man soiled himself, actually. Make sure it gets to Howard. I've got to make a report as soon as I can."

"Sure thing. Oh, Steve called. He wants to make sure you don't forget that Anna's first college term is over in a month and we're all going up to take her to dinner."

"That can't be right. Where on earth did the time go?" Peggy smiles. She's forty-two, but doesn't look a day over thirty: the serum has been kind to her. It's been kind to Bucky, too: sure, he's got some silver playing in weird places when he parts his hair, but he doesn't feel or look forty-six at all.

"You're telling me," he says, shaking his head as she changes. "Meet you back upstairs."

He takes the elevator back up, and slips back into his office, sitting down and looking momentarily at the family photo they'd all taken in the spring at Jamie's birthday party. There's Peggy in the middle of the sofa, flanked by Steve and Michael, beaming: Sarah, seven and a quarter, grinning and sporting two missing front teeth, sits on Peggy's lap. Jamie, newly eleven and looking very grown-up in his vest and tie and long pants, sits up straight between his mother and father. Anna, seventeen and far too old for any of this silly stuff, sits primly on the arm of the sofa by her dad in her bobby socks and skirt, sweater tied over her shoulders just below her shoulder-length bob of blond hair as she smiles serenely at the camera.

James turned out a sort of light brown blond, what Bucky's ma used to call _dishwater blond._ It's Steve's color through and through, but Sarah got her mom's dark, thick mane, several shades darker than her brother and father.  Bucky traces the kids' faces, then looks at himself, smiling for the photograph and leaning in from behind, empty sleeve pinned to his side and his arm waving hello, like it's some kind of joke: a man with his left arm secretly stuffed down his shirt to make kids laugh.

Bucky's got mixed feelings about the metal one: he disliked the chill and the superhuman strength, but if they could design a magic arm that looked just like his old one, he'd climb back into Stark's chair quicker than you could say Jack Rabbit. He mostly misses having a working limb. He's gotten used to it, sure, not having an arm, and he doesn't know what he would have done if he'd had to drive a stick for the rest of his days, but he still gets sympathetic looks on the street when he goes out with his flopping, empty sleeve.

It may be 1963, but women generally don't care to step out with him any more than they did in '51. Bea's still working for SHIELD as the head of their medical division after she'd gotten her second doctorate—this one in psychology, the first one in psychiatry—so she's off the table, probably for good: she's seeing some guy from Applied Sciences now anyway. Betty and Barbara and Carol had all gotten married one after the other, which left Bucky's pool of girlfriends—or just women he likes to spend time with, really—down to zero.

He had tried going to a bar, like a normal guy, and the only attention he'd ever gotten was from an incredibly nervous girl who, when he had walked her to the car, confessed all in a rush of tears and embarrassment that she really just had a thing for amputees, and he'd been so put off that he'd pretended to go to the toilet, then climbed out a window one-handed and walked home the other way, getting the car back in the morning.

It wasn't like Bucky could blame her, though. He had his own issues, bedroom-wise. _They oughta have sex shrinks,_ he thinks morosely, _although whoever'd be brave enough to talk to 'em beats me._

The phone rings, shaking him out of his reverie. Probably Steve again. He picks up. "Hello?"

There's nothing but the sound of slight static, and gentle breathing. " _This is…me,"_ says a voice, and suddenly it's 1951 again and all he can see is red, red, red: blood on the leaves, broken glass, a bullet in his gut,  _she almost killed Steve._

"You—"

" _Listen,_ " she says, sounding as if she's sleeptalking. " _Texas. Forth Worth…Dallas? I don't know much. Be there tomorrow. Something—"_

The line goes dead, and Barnes stares at the receiver in shock. How the _hell_ had she managed to find his office number? He'll worry about that later, though: right now there's shit to do. "Avery!"

Agent Avery slides into the office. "Barnes?"

"I want you to get a team together _now_ and fly to DFW. Two agents, at least Level Five. Something's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know what and I don't know where—"

"The President's in Dallas tomorrow," says Avery, looking confused. "Is that it?"

"Shit. Probably. I don't know. Just get a team together, and I'll head it up." Bucky grabs his jacket. "I want to leave as fast as we can, and I mean as fast as we can." He'd almost forgotten about Kennedy's visit, even though the Secret Service had routinely made clear where and when the President was going to be at all times. Bucky's not a man who really keeps up-to-date on politics: that's Peggy's purveyance.

"Agent Barnes!" That's Lawrence, who's kind of an asshole on his best day. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You have to clear it with Director Carter—"

"Can it, Larry," snaps Bucky, marching past him to the elevator. "Unless you wanna come too."

"What's all this?" asks Carter, emerging from the elevator and raising an eyebrow at Barnes with her arms crossed. "Do I hear raised voices?"

"I got a call from— _her_ ," says Bucky, half-strangled, and Peggy's face goes from amused to stunned. "She says to be in Dallas tomorrow. I think it's big."

"Well, why are you still standing here? Get on with supervising the mission. Is the team assembling in the hangar? I'll alert Howard—"

"Don't bother, it might be nothing. I'm going myself."

"Barnes—"

"Don't tell me it’s a bad idea," he says, low and rough. " _Don't_. I'm going to strangle that woman with my bare hands, but only if she tries it on me."

"You will not harm that woman. That's an order, Agent Barnes." Peggy stares him down, and he has to yield. "If she's even there. It might be a trap. I should go with you."

He shakes his head. "I don't think it is. I'll report once we've landed and found something. If it's nothing, I'll let you know. And if I miss the dinner, tell Anna I'm real sorry, okay?"

* * *

Texas is hot.

That's the first thing Natalie thinks as she steps off the plane and merges into the seething crowd of humanity in the Dallas Fort Worth airport: hot and bright and awful. She's glad of the sunglasses, and of the scarf she bought to wrap around her head: it offers some shade. America is a country where everything is too big and too bright and too loud and too hot—hell on earth, a capitalist nightmare.

She is on her own for this mission: there will be no extractions, no team. Natalie hefts her suitcase into a taxicab on the curb outside.

"Where to, miss?" asks the friendly driver, eyeing up her expensive Dior coat, likely in hopes of a large tip.

"Oh, whatever hotel is closest to where the President's going to be tomorrow!" she says brightly. "I'm _so_ excited, aren't you?"

He chuckles as she slides in. "I'm a Republican myself, but all right. Hotel Texas, maybe? The president's speaking there tomorrow, so you should be able to get right in there, up close and personal."

"Oh, wonderful," Natalie says, beaming. "That's exactly what I want."

* * *

"I want to _go_ ," says James, arms crossed tightly over his chest as he slumps down on the kitchen chair. "Other kids in my class get to go to their dad's work all the time. My mom has the coolest job ever, and I can't tell anyone, and I can't even go."

"It's not a field trip," says Steve, sliding him a grilled cheese on a plate. "And it's definitely not a trip to the electric plant."

"It's not fair," James snaps, glaring at the sandwich as if it personally offended him. "You said when I was older—"

Steve sighs. "You're not older, you're eleven. It's probably nothing anyway. Uncle Bucky gets a lot of weird calls at work."

James looks up rebelliously through his eyelashes. "But this one was different, or he wouldn't have gone."

"Okay. Then it's different, and it's serious, and I'm not letting my eleven year old son get in the middle of it." Steve flings a dishtowel over his shoulder and shoots his son a look as James opens his mouth again. "I don't care what the doctor said, either, so don't start in about how you've got the reflexes and strength of a seventeen year old, yada yada. You're still eleven."

James closes his mouth and sinks back angrily, stuffing the sandwich into his face.

"Sarah! Come and get it!"

"Grilled cheese!" shouts Sarah, skidding into the kitchen in her socks. She clambers up on the chair and kneels on the seat, shoveling down the crispy treat. As a family, they eat five meals a day, and the sandwiches always come before dinner. "Daddy, I climbed another tree today!"

"Which one?" Steve sits down, starting on his own sandwich.

"The really big one on the corner of Seventh and Maple. A boy said I was a dumb girl who couldn't climb higher than him, so I did, and he got real mad." She grins.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," James says angrily.

"James, you're not Mom," Steve reprimands gently.

"Yeah, because Mom's at the office late again, because a spy is gonna go to Dallas and set off a bomb or something. You said we were special and had gifts we had to learn to use the right way. How are we supposed to do that if you won't even let us _try?_ "

"James," says Steve wearily. "Your job right now is—"

"A bomb?" Sarah says, eyes wide and frightened. "Who has a bomb?"

Steve sighs. "Nobody has a bomb—"

"Mom's gonna go beat up the spy who has the bomb—"

" _James_!" Steve shouts, making the boy jump. "Enough. You're scaring your sister because you're mad. Go to your room."

James slides off his chair and stomps all the way to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Steve rubs his eyes and looks at his daughter, who's still frozen, sandwich halfway to her mouth. "Sarah, honey. There's no bomb. Your brother's teasing you."

"But Mommy's at the office late again."

"Yeah. She had to stay because Uncle Bucky got a funny phone call, and he's going to Dallas to follow up on something. It's not a big deal. I promise." Steve smooths down Sarah's flyaway frizz, a shade lighter than Peggy's, and smiles at her. "I'm proud of you for climbing that tree."

She grins, her front teeth coming in beneath her freckles. "I know you said we weren't s'posed to be too strong in front of people and act like other kids. But he was being mean, so it was okay, right? I didn't hurt him."

Steve nods. "Yes. Sometimes bullies need to be shown they're wrong, but you have to be gentle about it, because you're so much stronger than they are. Other times you might have to get rough, but you should never hurt someone who didn't do anything wrong, or who didn't know they were doing bad things. That make sense?"

"I think so." She chews another bite of sandwich. "My teacher says it's important to know your emmy."

"Emmy?" Steve fights a grin.

"Emeny—enemy. That one." Sarah swallows. "Like a bad guy."

"New word of the day for you," Steve teases. "Opponent. Means the person opposite you in a conflict."

"Op-po-nent," says Sarah carefully. "Is James my opponent?"

"Only when he's being a jerk," Steve informs her, and stands to go speak to his son.

* * *

James is lying on his side on his bed, and Steve looks around the room as he walks in. It had morphed with his multiple interests as he'd gotten older, and right now his big obsession was outer space: he had a model of the Solar System over the window and a couple of cardboard and paper spaceship models. Steve privately is counting down to the day Star Trek airs—in what, three years?—because he knows James is going to lose his mind with excitement.

Right now, though, James is pretending to be engrossed in _The Hobbit_ , going almost cross-eyed trying to read it. "Go away," he says, his voice cracking slightly. The doctors had said there was just about as much of a chance of early puberty as late for both the kids, and it looked like James was leaning toward early.

"I want to talk to you." Steve sits on the bed.

"Other dads don't _talk_ to their kids," says James derisively. "Bobby Martin says his dad comes home and doesn't even say hi. He just sits in a chair and yells."

"Do you want me to ignore you all day and sit in a chair and yell?"

"Bobby says—" James' eyes flicker up, and Steve sees real hurt there. "Bobby says his dad said you were a sissy because you let Mom walk all over you, and then him and Jack Derham said I was a sissy too."

Steve snorts. "I'm sure Bobby's dad is an expert on what men oughta act like, coming home and yelling at his four kids and his wife." James giggles in spite of himself, and Steve shakes his head. "Nah, I shouldn't have said that. It wasn't nice. It was true, but it wasn't nice."

"I wanted to fight Bobby," says James, sitting up and looking down. "But you said—I know I'm not supposed to, but I just got so mad—it all got choked right here." He taps his throat. "I knew I could beat him up, but I didn't. I guess I am a sissy."

"Hmm." Steve takes the ratty paperback out of James' hands. "Found my old copy, huh?"

"It's a good book," he mumbles, looking as if he's embarrassed. "Mom said it was one of her favorites. She always liked stories about dragons."

"It is a good book," agrees Steve. "But the best thing about it is Bilbo."

"Bilbo?" James snorts. "Why?"

"He's a hero, but he never really wants to be." Steve turns the book over. "He just wants comfort and food, but he has to be a hero, and even then he does all his heroic stuff through being sneaky. He doesn't even fight in the battle in the end, he gets knocked out."

"But he can't fight," says James. "He's just a hobbit. He's small."

"But he's got a Ring of Power," says Steve, raising his finger. "You read _Fellowship of the Ring,_ right? I know Mom caught you with it when you were supposed to be vacuuming the living room last week."

"Yes," says James, abashed.

"So, if he wanted to, you know, he could have used that power he had to beat everyone, all the bullies, right? Except the Ring is power, and power will make you into a bad person unless you actively fight it, remember. He's able to give it up, and he's the only person who was ever strong enough in all of Middle-Earth to do it. Real power isn't being able to punch stuff really hard. Real power is knowing when to be quiet and roll over and when to stand up and fight."

James considers. "When do I stand up and fight?"

"You fight when it's not about you." Steve wraps his arm around his son's shoulders. "You don't need to defend yourself. You know what's true and what's not about you, and me, and your mom, and your sister. You fight when you don't have any other choice, and you fight to help others."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"I know you're not a sissy." James sounds like he might cry. "I just got mad, because I wanted a normal dad, like Bobby. But I don't, not really." He sniffles.

"And I know you're not a sissy, either," Steve tells him, smiling. "When you were six you picked up the edge of the sofa to help your mom look for a quarter. Darn near had a heart attack."

James grins through his teary face. "I oughta tell Bobby he's the real sissy, 'cause he won't even help his mom make dinner and says his sister should do it all. What's he scared of, that the oven'll eat him?"

Steve snorts and ruffles James' hair. "You tell him that if he picks on you again. I gotta go make sure your sister has clean pajamas."

* * *

Peggy goes through paperwork she's hadn't had time to catch up on as she waits by the phone. It's nearly ten at night, and Barnes still hasn't reported, even though he ought to have landed in Dallas by now. _Perhaps he's just waiting on something to happen first,_ she thinks, signing her name to several letters.

Since Phillips had retired and was happily ensconced in California playing golf, she had found herself landed with most of the responsibilities of running SHIELD. Howard splits his time between here and New Jersey, newly engaged to a Maria Carbonell, who Peggy hasn't yet had the pleasure of meeting, but she's sure she will. Hopefully _before_ the wedding, if it even gets that far: Peggy knows Howard too well to expect anything to come of it.

"Baker," she calls through the open door, "could you kindly grab me a tea?"

"Yes, ma'am," comes the faint answer of her assistant, Frank Baker, a constantly nervous college grad who seems to think she'll fire him at any offense. Peggy stifles a smile as he enters minutes later carrying a cup and saucer in both hands, setting it on the desk with all the care of a butler. "Anything—else, ma'am?" he asks.

"No, thank you." She sips the tea and nods in approval, watching as he almost runs back to his desk. Ah, well. At least he's energetic.

The phone rings. She picks it up. "This is Director Carter."

" _It's me."_ The voice is unmistakably Barnes. " _Sorry I took so long. Uh, I questioned a guy who thinks he saw a redhead get into a cab by herself, and one of the cabbies here says he took a young woman travelling alone to Hotel Texas, but said she had on dark sunglasses and a hair scarf, so I wouldn't be able to get a definite identification. Another airport employee says he thought he saw another girl on her own but described her as more of a beatnik, you know, with long raggedy hair and funny clothes."_

"Well, she could look like anyone." Peggy taps her pen on her desk. "I'm sure plenty of young women travel alone these days. Keep an eye open tomorrow. If the President's the target, I can get in touch with the Secret Service."

Bucky sounds disgruntled. " _We tried calling already. They were a bunch of condescending assholes. Said they didn't need the Dick Tracy division to do their job for them."_

Peggy sighs. "Indeed. Where are you now?"

" _Hotel Texas. Figured we didn't want to attract undue attention. Second floor rooms. Greg and Tom are across the hall. The President and his wife are in 850. We'll keep a close eye on things."_

Peggy feels a slowly dawning horror creep up her back. "If our Miss Romanoff is staying at the same hotel, it's possible she might attempt to kill the President in his room. You said you spoke to a cabbie who took a woman to Hotel Texas?"

" _Yes, but I haven't seen anyone matching the description he gave. She could be holed up in her room. I'll see if I can track her down."_

"If she wants you to find her, I'm sure you'll succeed," says Peggy. "Good luck, and be careful."

" _Don't worry, I got the Stark Tech goodie bag. Call you in the morning."_ The line goes dead, and Peggy sets it down.

Well, time for a short night and an early morning. She finishes her tea, leaves the cup for Baker to clean up, and picks up her coat.

* * *

Bucky heads to the front desk, putting on his most charming smile. "Hi," he says politely to the stiff hairdo behind the walnut desk. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but my fiancée is staying here, and I want to surprise her. Did a young woman check in around, uh, four PM? She had on sunglasses and a fancy coat, and a scarf around her hair."

"Oh, four? Let me check." The desk clerk leans down, poking through the ledger. "We had… let's see. Almost twenty people checked in around four, it was so busy. You know the President's going to give a speech here tomorrow morning? The place is packed!"

"I heard," says Bucky, feigning excitement. "That's why she came, she just loves him."

"And Mrs. Kennedy! Gosh, I wanted to just die when she walked in. Always dressed to the nines." The girl goes back to looking at the ledger. "Well. Looks like…no, that lady came with her husband, those were all men, _that_ was a real old lady with a yappy dog…" The girl frowns, then taps the page with a smile. "Oh, here we are. Miss Natalie Russell, right? Red hair? I remember because I just wanted to tear that coat right off her back. Dior, _so_ haute. She's in room 540."

"That's her. Thank you!" says Bucky, handing her five dollars and trying not to race for the elevator.

* * *

Room 540 is quiet and small: two twin beds with yellow comforters, dark green carpet, pale blue wallpaper, a pair of armchairs. Natalie sits on the edge of her bed, still wearing the dark-blue, sleeveless pencil dress she'd worn on the plane under her Dior coat, and methodically assembles and re-assembles the Kalashnikov that had been disassembled in the suitcase for her. It had been tucked under her clothing and necessities for the trip: she had not picked any of that herself. That was the duty of her superiors: she does not get a choice, ever.

There's a knock on the door. She stiffens, immediately sensing danger, and grabs her sidearm, inching toward the door and listening cautiously. "Hello?" she chirps, sounding as American as possible as she mentally reiterates—no, _remembers_ : Natalie Russell is an American in Dallas to see the President's motorcade and speeches—

The voice through the wood stops her in her tracks. "Room service."

 _It's him,_ her mind screams in mingled horror and elation, and she swings the door wide without thinking. There's a split second as green eyes lock with blue, and then she's dropping her pistol as the muzzle of a Colt 1911 pistol presses between her eyebrows. She steps backward into the room, and James Barnes kicks the door shut behind him, then kicks her dropped sidearm toward the bathroom. "Start talking," he snarls.

Her eyes can't help but flicker to his empty sleeve, even as her mind flashes through a hundred different ways to kill him. "Your arm—"

"I said, _start talking_ ," he spits, and uses his body to pin her up against the wall, the muzzle of the gun jammed under her jaw. "Why are you here? Why did you call me?"

"Mission—" She squirms, which has the unintended effect of bringing her thigh into contact with a part of his body she hasn't considered yet: Barnes lets out a soft sound as if it pains him and she realizes he's… "If you're going to use _that_ to interrogate me, you'll be disappointed."

"Shut up," says Barnes, hand trembling. He looks as if he wants to kiss her and hit her all at once. "Shut _up_. You have a Kalashnikov rifle in your fucking hotel room and I know damn well you know the President's staying here. What were you planning, huh? Some kind of stealthy assassination in his own bed? Shooting him through the walls?"

"As if a rifle exists that could shoot through three floors and up without killing anyone else in the process," she spits. "No, I'm not. It's going to be public. They were very specific."

"What, during the speech tomorrow?" Barnes digs the muzzle deeper into the flesh beneath her jaw.

"No." She squirms again, her thigh in its casing of blue jersey rubbing against his groin, and Barnes loses his concentration for a split second, eyes unfocusing. It's enough, and she rears her head back, headbutting him. He brings the gun up, but he's no match for her with one arm and caught off his guard, and she forces his wrist down and away, drives back into his chest with a shoulder, and knocks him flat on his back. The 1911 skitters across the carpet and lands with a thud by the bed as she pins him down, knees bracketing his waist. " _Weak_ ," she hisses. "I'm disappointed."

He's red in the face, struggling helplessly as she holds him down. "You _called me_ —"

Her mind isn't quite catching up: she knows she is supposed to kill him now, but something—she knows him. She's sure she does—and she remembers something else. "Didn't I—"

"What?" he demands, and stiffens as her free hand untucks his shirt, yanking it up to expose the faint scar beneath his navel, puckered like a crater, marring the flat expanse of his belly. " _Stop—_ "

"I shot you," she says, looking up quickly. "I knew—I knew you. Didn't I?"

"You _called me_ at my _office—"_

"Yes. Phone call. I…" She trails off. "Natalia. They gave me…they gave me a new name for this mission. I had forgotten."

"Who's 'they'?" Barnes asks, still flat on his back.

"I don't know. There was a doctor." Natalia gets off Barnes, trying to remember, and becoming increasingly worried when she cannot. What has happened to her? Her memory is fragmented: a thousand shards flying in all directions. "I know my mission. I can't—I can't remember what happened before. It comes through in pieces."

"I know what that's like," he mutters, sitting up. "You know who I was. Huh? You could at least remember me."

"I…" She does know, she's sure she does, but something keeps putting her off—oh! "You—you're the Asset. The Soldier."

"I _was_ ," Barnes corrects.

"I called you… why did I call _you_?" She sits on her haunches, hands pressed to the sides of her head. "Fen…hoff. The doctor's name was Fenhoff. I don't remember…"

"You warned me. You said to be here tomorrow."

"Someone's going to shoot the President," she says distantly, eyes unfocused.

"Yeah, _you_."

That can't be right. "Why would _I_ shoot the—"

"You have a Kalashnikov on your _bed_ , you tell me!"

She looks at the gun like she's never seen it before. Has she? What is happening? "I don't—" Barnes sits up and picks up his radio, but Natalia kicks it out of his hands on instinct, and it shatters on the floor. " _Don't_ ," she hisses, eyes huge and frightened. "You shouldn't be here. You can't interfere: I'll be taken to Siberia when I go back to Russia—"

"As if I give a good goddamn what happens to you," snarls Barnes, rounding on her. "I know what's wrong with you. There's—it's like two of you, inside your head, and the first person is who they want you to be—the other person is who you really are, the person they're trying to wipe out of you."

"And… there's no room for both," she whispers. "You'd go mad."

Barnes nods. "Yeah, so I'm not letting you out of my sight until the President's out of here, and that's final."

* * *

Bucky honest-to-God can't believe his eyes. _I was never like her,_ he thinks, but even as he thinks it he knows he was, and in a way he still is: torn between two courses of action and never able to just _stop_ , never able to think.

She sits on the floor, her red hair trailing like a river of copper silk down her shoulders and her round green eyes staring at him in absolute terror as she stares at the rifle she must have smuggled in as if it's just appeared in her room of its own free will, and yet he knows one wrong word and she could just as easily shoot him again, this time for good.

He almost wishes she would shoot him, if only to save him from the knowledge that he'd gotten a hard-on from just being in the same room with her and that she knew it, and that the situation had only gotten worse when she'd snarled that she was _disappointed_. _Jesus Christ, Barnes_ , he thinks, not for the first time in the past decade. _What the hell's wrong with you?_

Natalia looks up at him, then, and he's almost afraid she read his mind. "You can't just drag me to your room," she snaps. "I'll scream and a maid will come running. There's Secret Service—"

"Nope," he agrees. "I'm staying here. As much as I'd like to haul you back to my room and hog-tie you, you're not worth the trouble."

 _That_ pisses her off. "You're not worth the bullet it would take to kill you," she hisses.

"Oh, you'd need more than a bullet," he taunts. "I may have one fuckin' arm, but I don't die easy."

Natalia scoffs. "Nobody I kill dies easily, Agent Barnes."

"Oh, I know," Bucky says. "After your little stunt with my friend and that neurotoxin—"

She raises an eyebrow. "You're still angry about that?"

"I've got half a mind to gag you and leave you in the closet," he spits.

Natalia snorts derisively. "It was just a little drop of poison—"

"He had to be _intubated—"_

She rolls her eyes. "Don't lose your temper, or I'll have to turn you over my knee and spank you."

 _Shit._ Every drop of blood in his body seems to rush south, and he tries to choke out a response, but can't, instead vainly trying to hide himself with one hand. "You—fucking—"

" _Oh_ ," she says in a very different tone, tilting her head. "Is that the way it is?"

"Don't _talk to me_ ," he hisses, humiliated: he hasn't been this hard for months and he awkwardly clambers to his feet, shielding his body from her view.

She has the absolute gall to look confused. "I'm not going to mock you—"

"Oh, you're not gonna _mock me_? Good. Good to fucking know." Bucky's face is as hot as the surface of the sun. "You know what, I fuckin' changed my mind. You go ahead and shoot the goddamn President for all I care. And afterward, I'll put a bullet through your head myself." He leans on the footboard of the closest bed, trying to fight back tears gathering in his throat, itching behind his eyes.

Natalia's silent, head still slightly tilted as she gazes up at him. "Well, I've never had a man react like _that_ before."

"Shut up," he snaps, voice choked. He feels like his sanity's barely hanging on by a thread: he hasn't been able to get off for years and if he could _just_ get somewhere private right now—but he can't; he has to do his fucking job. What a kick in the fuckin' teeth.

"I know why you're angry," she says softly. "You don't need to be."

"I don't need a shrink session from a crazy Russian spy," Bucky manages.

"No?" She stands, and he can't tear his eyes away from her figure: full-breasted, petite, soft fullness to the muscle in her arms and shoulders. "What do you need?"

"I don't—I don't need anything," he insists, taking a step closer to her despite his protests. _Does she really know? Does she understand?_

"They wiped you so often, Asset," she whispers, eyes searching his. "You only knew how to respond to orders, to punishment. Nobody considered the other ramifications, did they?"

"You can't know that," he says through his teeth.

"It's basic psychology," she informs him. "The basest needs of an animal. Food. Water. Warmth. Rest. Shelter. Sex. Take those away, even one, and if it cannot be met, the animal will never pursue belonging, or safety, or esteem."

"I'm not an animal," he murmurs, although he's never felt more like one.

Her eyes flash up to his with astonishing clarity. "We are all animals, Barnes. The human animal. They treated us like animals. Trained to perform. Do this, do that—" She cuts herself off, shaking her head. "I can help you."

He doesn't feel as if he can breathe. "I don't need your help." The words don't come out strong and decisive, like he'd wanted. They come out in a pathetic whimper. "I _don't_ ," he tries again, sounding desperate.

She's interested: he can see that in the gleam of her eyes and her slightly-parted mouth. _It'll give you both something to do while you supervise her,_ says the part of his brain that isn't currently tied up with screaming at him to get the hell out of the room and run down the turnpike if he has to. "Don't you? I'm very good at reading a person. I can be whatever you need me to be. I can be anyone."

 _Anyone_. Bucky thinks suddenly of the packet he'd surreptitiously mail-ordered a year ago: eight black-and-white photographs of different women in corsets and wielding canes and crops, and his face suffuses with the heat of shame and the memory of holing up in the bathroom furiously jerking off for the first time in years, but still not able to _finish_. "I—"

Natalia reaches up and peels out of her dress, dropping the blue material to the floor and leaving her in nothing but her white cotton bra and undergarments, and Bucky's mouth goes so dry he almost can't stand it. Isn't that just swell: the only woman's he's been able to get hot for in _years_ is a dirty Russian spy who'd just as soon shoot him dead as kiss him, and even worse, that's exactly why he's hot for her. "Do you want to?" she asks, straightforward and without a modicum of shame about the whole thing.

Bucky gives in. "Yes," he manages, hand shaking.

"Good. You like to give the orders, or you like to receive them?"

"You—you give me orders," he stammers, heat flooding his face again. "You tell me—"

She's astonishingly adaptable: her posture changes at once and she looks down her nose at him: quite a feat from someone who can't be over five-four. "Take your clothes off. Kneel."

Something in Bucky's brain snaps. "Yes, Comrade," he gasps, and strips so fast it feels like a blur before he's kneeling on the dark green carpet, head down and waiting as his dick, hard enough to hang a helmet on, juts up from between his thighs, swollen and red and wet at the tip.

Natalia stalks closer, and tucks her finger under his chin, looking down at him as she makes him look up at her. "You like this game, Barnes?"

"B-Bucky," he manages, tears of embarrassment and relief already gathering in his eyes. "My name is Bucky."

"Bucky, then." She releases his chin and steps back. "If you're very good and do as I say, you'll be allowed to finish."

"Yes, Comrade," he whispers.

She turns and walks to the armchair across the room, away from him, then turns and sits, patting her knee. "Come here. Crawl to me."

God help him; he crawls on his one arm. He crawls until the rug is burning his knees and he's sitting on his haunches in front of her like a dog eager for a treat, and she pops a finger past his lips, making him suck on the digit until his lips are wet and swollen, and after that Natalia drags her wet finger down to his chest, to his nipple, making him whimper as she teases the tender flesh there.

She flicks his nipple, and it's all he can do not to come right there, shaking with anticipation. He doesn't, though. He hasn't been given permission yet. "Good boy," she says approvingly, watching him, and Bucky sucks in a breath, trembling. He's glad she told him to get on his knees. He doesn't think he could stand right now if he tried.

"C-can I—" The gusset of her underwear is damp and the earthy smell of her wafts with every movement she makes, and really, it's right at eye-level. "Na—Natalia—"

"Comrade," she reminds him, and he shuts his eyes.

"Comrade—I want to—to—" He doesn't know the word for the act in Russian, but he can't help but lick his lips and stare.

"No," she says, not unkindly. "You are under my command. You do not get to choose. I choose for you."

It's like a weight goes off his shoulders: _you do not get to choose_ , and he bows his head, trembling with the freedom of it, even though it's _crazy_ , what he's doing right now—what they're both doing. "Yes, Comrade."

She stands, then, and picks up the belt that goes with the Dior coat, the ends slithering out of the loops sewn to the sides. "Come here," she orders, pointing to the foot of the bed by the window, and he goes, still on his hand and knees. "Hand here." She taps the footboard, and he reaches up, clinging to it with one hand, his shoulder pressed to the wood.

The initial slap and sting of the fabric strap on his bare ass sends a jolt through his whole body, as if he's touched a live outlet. _Holy shit,_ he wants to cry, but he hasn't been given permission to. The belt comes down again and again, and by the time she's done, Bucky's shaking, biting into his lower lip as tears streak down his cheeks. He's so hard he thinks he might lose it right there, without even being touched, and when her cool hands trace across his aching backside, soothing the burn, he has to fight a sob.

"Shh," Natalia orders, and he obeys, pressing his mouth into a tight line. "The women you're surrounded by… they will never understand, will they?"

"I don't know," he gasps, trembling as her hands knead and press. He can't focus on anything except the desperation to get off, and he can't do that until— "Please, please—just tell me I can—let me—"

"Are you begging me, comrade?" She sounds amused, and he turns his head, cheeks on fire.

 _This is fucked up_ , he thinks in a burst of lucidity, but it doesn't matter: nothing matters. "Yes," he whines, squirming as her hands slip between his legs. "Ye— _fuck—"_ Warm fingers curl around his hips, and he lets her manhandle him to the bed, where she puts him on his back and wraps her hand around his throat, her eyes bright and wild as she uses the other hand to stroke and pull at his cock.

Bucky doesn't stand a chance. He has no air, and all he can see is red, red, red—her hair, the blood pounding in his ears. " _Please_ —" he sobs past her fingers, choking.

"You can come now," she whispers, and he shatters under her and in her hand; a bright glow starting at the base of his spine and exploding through his body, ripping him to bits with white-hot pleasure as he comes for the first time in decades. He can't stop, his dick spills hot on his belly and her hand. There are tears streaking down his face, into his ears as he's lying on his back; they're cold by the time they reach his ears. He can't see, and he's making noises he'd blush to hear coming from someone else. "Good boy," says Natalia, her hand loosening from around his throat.

"Don't—" he gasps out, broken, and uses his hand to clap her there. "Keep—keep—"

"All right," Natalia says, and he doesn't nod to signal she can release him until he's completely spent and drained, his sight blurred with tears as she leans in to look at him more closely. "That was good?" she asks.

"It—" Bucky's brain is piecing itself back together again, bit by bit as he comes down from the climax. He sits up awkwardly and wipes his face. "That was—" _Stupid,_ he should say. _The dumbest thing I've done in years._ But he can't say that, not when she looks genuinely concerned for his welfare (and isn't _that_ a joke?) with those big green eyes, that shining red hair. He wonders if her lips are as soft as they look, and then thinks, _if I stay here I'm going to end up shot_. "I have to—I have to go." He swings his legs off the bed, hoping they'll hold his weight. They do, bar the slight wobbliness.

"No—" She darts off the bed to block his exit, something stirring in her eyes. "Please. Don't go. Stay."

"I can't—"

"I don't want to be alone," Natalia says softly.

"You're a Black Widow. You're always alone." Where the hell are his underpants? "I can't stay here. That was a stupid mistake."

"But you liked it," she protests as he shoves past her and goes looking for a wet cloth to clean himself up. "Didn't you?"

"Doesn't matter what I like," he snaps, scrubbing himself down with a wet washcloth from the bathroom. "I have a job to do, and that's stopping you from doing your job." His underwear is crumpled by the door, and he yanks them back on.

"Your friend was nicer than you," she mutters, sounding put out.

"Yeah," snaps Bucky, "everyone likes Steve better than me. I'm used to it." There's a bitter tang in his voice he can't quite hide, and Natalia draws closer, eyeing him up as if she's never really seen him before.

"You think you're a broken man," she says softly, looking at the heavy scarring on his left shoulder: the metal stump. "Not whole. Second to your friend-"

Rage threatens to drown Bucky, and he grabs her by the hair and shoves her back against the wall; how _dare_ she look into him like this, pull his fucking soul out and look at it like it's a book? She lets him do it; she doesn't offer a hint of restraint, and her eyes meet his as a flush stains her cheeks. "You shut the hell up about Steve," he snarls.

"You're not a broken man," she says, and both eyes find his shoulder again. "Can I…" Her eyes snap up to his. "Can I touch it?"

Nobody's ever asked him that before: anyone he was lucky enough to have actually take his shirt off was normally repulsed by the thing, and he didn't blame them: a hunk of ugly metal, a plate jutting from a bed of scar tissue. "You—you want to touch it?"

"It's not a trick," she hastens to add.

He lets go of her hair. "Fine," he says, and tries to keep his composure as she traces the ragged, scarred edges of skin: the ridges of tissue nerveless for almost twenty years, the puckered flesh, the metal. "Can you feel this?" she asks, almost curious, and drags her fingers down the stump.

"Not…not here," Bucky tells her, pointing at the center of the stump, where Howard had bent over and soldered the rough edges. "But here, yeah," and he points at the sides, the circumference of the stump. "They're…they were plugged into neural circuits."

"So you could move the arm as if it was your own," she muses, and cups his shoulder in her hand. He can't tell temperature with the arm, only pressure, but it still feels tight and close: comforting. "I saw the diagrams for it a long time ago, I think. I only just remembered them now."

He blinks. "How old are you, Natalia?"

"How old do you want me to be?" she responds, half-smiling as she chucks him under the chin. "How old are  _you_?"

 _Christ_ , he's getting hard again. "I'm forty-six. I'm missing my left arm. I'm a walking disaster who can't do his fucking job anymore."

"I don't care," she says. "Take your pants back off. Get into bed. Stay with me."

"Only if you let me kiss you this time," he whispers, daring to dream.

Natalia tilts her head and gives him a slow smile. "Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES!  
> -The Kennedys really did stay at the Hotel Texas (which I believe is now owned by Marriott) before they left the next morning to drive through downtown. There's a statue today on site commemorating his speech given there on the morning of the 22nd.  
> -I feel like the way I'm writing Natasha might confuse a few people. Just to be clear, she's been brainwashed by Fenhoff (hello, Agent Carter!) and is vacillating between two perceptions of reality/self-awareness, so her actions and words may contradict each other.  
> -RIP in peace bucky barnes' life of no nutting, press f to pay respects


	27. November 22, 1963

The gray morning light streams through the curtains of Room 540 in the Hotel Texas, falling on the rumpled bedclothes. Bucky Barnes stirs, squinting, and his heart drops as he sees the bedside clock: it's almost ten in the morning.

_Shit. Shit, shit._

There's a voice droning from somewhere close by, and he turns over. A radio, small and portable, is lying on its side on the other nightstand, and he recognizes the translations of the words in Russian as they pipe through.

_Wolf._

_Dusk._

_Achievement._

_Six._

_Brisé._

_Scarlet._

_Engine._

_Icepick._

_Nine._

_Serendipity._

They repeat over and over until Bucky smashes the radio to bits. Natalia is gone, her side of the bed not even made up, and the rifle and her suitcase are gone too, along with her clothes. There's a note on the table, and Bucky snatches it up. On it, in shaky block printing are four words in English: IT WAS MY MISSION.

Bucky yanks his clothes on and races for the door.

* * *

"Where the hell have you _been?"_ snaps Agent Greg McCarthy. "We tried to call your radio—"

"Shut up and let me call Director Carter," hisses Bucky, dialing on the room phone. Agent Tom Jackson stands with his arms crossed, an expression on his broad dark face as if he knows exactly what Bucky's been doing as the phone rings and rings.

She picks up. " _Hello?"_

"Director, it's Barnes. I've lost Romanoff."

" _What? How?"_

"I—" Bucky wishes the earth would open up and swallow him whole right about now. "I did something fucking stupid, that’s how. I have no idea when she left the hotel, but the President's motorcade is leaving for Carswell Air Force Base in fifteen minutes to fly to Love Field, and I'm requesting your authorization to join the motorcade with the Secret Service."

There's a long silence on the other end of the line, until she finally says, " _I'll make a call. Check out of your rooms and go down to the lobby. Wait for further instructions."_

"Yes, Director," he says, and she hangs up on him. Jackson and McCarthy stare at him until he turns on his heel. "You can stop gaping at me as if I just grew carrots outta my ass and get to packing, Agents."

* * *

The lobby is packed with milling people hoping to catch a glimpse of the President, so the three men have no issue sitting patiently on a sofa and waiting for someone to come and tell them what to do.

Well, Jackson and McCarthy don't have an issue, anyway. Barnes keeps pacing, liable to wear a track in the floor. "Barnes," says Jackson wearily. "In all the time you've been a senior agent, you've never once slipped up. I ain't holding it against you."

"Thanks," Bucky mutters.

"Was she cute, at least?" asks McCarthy, needling him a little.

"Shut up, Greg," says Bucky.

A woman about fifty years old and her husband, standing on the other side of the room, are giving them dirty looks. Barnes stares right back until the woman looks away, and they both go to the front desk. "Everyone in this city has a stick up their ass," observes Greg. "Y' think it's contagious?"

"If everything's bigger in Texas," says Tom, "that's gonna be a hell of a stick."

"No, ma'am," the desk clerk is saying politely, "this is not a segregated hotel. We won't ask the gentleman to leave."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," says Bucky, probably too loudly. "Is the South a separate planet?"

Tom Jackson sighs as the middle-aged man raises his voice. "I ain't gonna share a damn lobby with one of _them_ ," he barks, attracting some attention from the crowd as he jabs a finger in the direction of Tom, Greg, and Bucky.

"Ah, I see. This is because I'm Irish, innit? Well," says Greg very loudly, and in his thickest accent, "whatever ye may have against the Irish, the President's an Irishman nae, inne? D'ye wan' _him_ ta leave, too?"

There's an awful dead silence, the man's face purpling with rage, and someone in the back starts laughing. That sets off the rest of them, and the couple turns away from the desk, hurrying for the front door. The woman is in tears, and the man turns toward Jackson as he passes, red-faced. He spits directly in Tom's face, and starts hissing, "Stupid nig—"

He never finishes it. McCarthy hauls off and punches the man in the face so hard he goes sprawling, and the wife shrieks and sobs and yammers on about calling the police. "Yeah, you go on and do that," Bucky says as the husband staggers back up to his feet. "I'll tell them your husband assaulted a federal agent, and you can tell your Daughters of the Confederacy club all about his time in jail when you go to your next meeting." He flashes his identification, bearing the seal of the Department of Defense, and the woman's crocodile tears stop at once. She snatches her handbag up in her arms and races for the door on her kitten heels, her husband chasing after her shouting to wait.

"Sorry about that, Tom," says Greg, pulling out his own handkerchief and handing it to him.

"Don't fuss about it," says Tom, wiping his face off. "It's easy to forget what it's like down here when you're in DC all the damn time."

"Agent Barnes?" That comes from a man in a dark suit, who'd moved so quietly they hadn't heard him.

"Yes, sir," says Bucky.

"I'm Special Agent Clint Hill. Director Carter's authorized McCarthy and Jackson to join the motorcade for extra security. You'll fly with us to Dallas Love Field and be put on the ground."

"Did she tell you why?" Bucky's already following him.

"No, sir."

"Good. I'll leave you at the airport when we touch down at Love Field and go my own way. Good luck."

* * *

Natalie Russell sits patiently in Dealey Plaza, looking at the newspaper clipping showing the presidential motorcade route. The streets are already filling in anticipation, but from her spot on the grassy hill, wearing a headscarf and sunglasses, she's going to have the best view of them all.

Her rifle lies under her coat, spread out under her to protect her backside from the cold grass. All she has to do is wait, and—

_His mouth on her collarbone, tracking heat across her breasts: tongue lapping at her nipple—_

What? That isn’t—

_"I fucking hate you," he gasps, his eyes blue and wet and huge before he buries his mouth between her legs, rubbing at her with his hand. "Natalia—"_

Those aren't her memories. Who—

_light beaming down_

_"Please, yes—"_

_light beaming down, warm: light beaming down, cold and burning through her skin—two nodes on her head, a finger rubbing a ring in a room lit by a single bulb_

Natalie half-chokes on her own breath with the force of the emotion that rips through her, so strong she doesn't have a name for it. This can't be her: she's an American, and she has an important job to do, something about the rifle and the car and the—

_the radio crackling on, static and noise until she fiddles with the tuner out of habit and the voice comes through, the voice—what had the voice said, can you remember Natalia Alianovna Romanoff what the voice said? There are wolves and there are girls says Comrade Kudrin before injecting her with the syringe and both the wolves and the girls have teeth sharp as knives, waiting in the snow, if little red riding hood had eaten up the wolf then all would have been well_

A fist has closed around her lungs. She can't breathe. There was something she had to remember, some order she hadn't followed, and she can't make herself recall it. _You'll remember after the mission is complete,_ she reassures herself, and pats the lump under her coat to make sure the rifle is still there. _Don't think about it now. Think about it later._

It's nearly half-past noon, and she can hear a cheer rise as off in the distance, the shining black car rounds the corner, heading straight for her down the curve of road. Jackie Kennedy's pink hat is visible, a raspberry-colored smear in the black car, and Natalie gets up, rounding the fence and readying her rifle under cover of the trees. There's nobody back here: they're all down by the road, and that's how she likes it. Once she's done, she'll disassemble the rifle, pack it up, and go out the back way, down the other side of the hill to the parking lot, where she'll steal a car and drive to the airport immediately. _Always have an exit plan,_ she thinks, as she finishes loading the rifle.

She aims, careful as anything as she rests the barrel on the fence, and sights down it. Kennedy's head is in the crosshairs, and as he draws closer, she sees—he raises his fists oddly to his throat, elbows pointing out and up absurdly as his wife's gloved hand takes his arm.

Natalie squeezes the trigger.

Several things happen at once. As she pulls off a shot, something hits her on the arm and a shock of electricity jolts through her, knocking her to the grass and sending the rifle pointing up, missing her target, and as her face hits the ground _another_ shot goes off at nearly the same time, and a scream goes up from the assembled crowd. Natalie can see through the crack of the fence: the top of the President's head has blown apart, gore spattering his wife's strawberry-colored suit jacket and skirt as she climbs over the back of the car, reaching for a chunk of his skull.

"Stay down!" barks a voice she knows, but doesn't know. Natalie rolls over, arm tingling and numb; she looks up into sunshine and the face of a man she…remembers. Does she remember? Who is he?

"Let me go," she hisses, struggling.

"I said, stay down." He puts a knee on her chest, and even with all her strength, she can't wiggle out from under his weight as he yanks a radio from his belt and depresses the switch. "Jackson. This is Barnes. I have Romanoff in custody." He yanks something off her arm: it's some kind of metal device that's made her limb useless and dangling.

The static crackles. " _Copy that. Looks like the shots came from the Depository. There must have been a second gunman. They're sealing it off."_

"Good. I'm going to take her straight to headquarters. She didn't manage to hit her target." He drags Natalie to an upright position and slaps a pair of cuffs on her. She doesn't even hear the rest of the message.

_She didn't manage to hit her target._

_You have failed. Your punishment will be severe_

Natalie panics and kicks the man in the chest, fighting to get free. "Let me _go_ ," she screams, and he slams her back down, putting a handkerchief over her eyes—where had he been keeping that? She can't see as he drags her to her feet and drapes her coat over her to hide the cuffs before he shakes her sharply.

"Shut up! It's me, it's Bucky. I'm trying to get you outta here without the cops seeing."

"B—Bucky?" she stammers, shaken into stillness. "I—no. I don't—I know you, don't I?"

He evaluates her quickly. "We're playing a game. You're my girlfriend and I'm getting you back to the bus stop. You can't stand blood. Play along and I'll make sure SHIELD keeps you safe. You didn't commit a crime. You understand that? I can get you somewhere safe. I know it wasn't your fault."

Natalie understands at once. "You'll protect me," she says, trying to clarify. Sensation is slowly trickling back into her arm.

"Yes. I swear I will." He puts an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go." She makes the requisite noises as he hustles her through the grass and the confused crowds, rushing with her head down until they reach a cool alley and he whips the handkerchief off her eyes.

"What…what's my name?" she ventures, blinking as her eyes adjust.

"Natalia." He uncuffs her. "You were subject to reprogramming. The radio in your room was repeating the trigger words. That’s how I knew it wasn't you in control."

"The—" She can't remember that at all. She can't even remember what she did this morning. There was just…the sunlight, and the grass, and the rifle. Who is this man, this man that she thinks she knows?

"Barnes?" asks a man, and she turns in confusion to see a red-headed, red-cheeked white man and a tall black one, both wearing suits as they approach quickly. _Danger_ , screams her brain as they reach for their sidearms, and she darts back, shielding herself behind Barnes. She knows that name, but can't remember—

"Easy," he says. "She didn't shoot him."

"She was going to," insists the red-headed man.

"But she _didn't_."

"Should we turn her in to the Dallas police?" asks the black man. "She might know who _did_ shoot the President."

"No. They don't gotta know a damn thing. I—I'll take her back to the Playground. We have a procedure for captured foreign agents; Carter set it up in '57."

"I don't know who else was here," Natalie insists. "I don't even remember leaving my hotel."

"She's been—it's a kind of hypnosis," says Barnes, turning back to the other men. "I know for a fact yesterday she didn't know what she was doing. Not completely."

Natalie presses her hands to her head. It hurts, this ache in her temples. "My name," she requests. "Tell me again."

"Natalia. Natalia Romanoff."

"I…" He's right, she knows it, though _how_ she knows it she doesn't know, and she's so, so tired. "I surrender. Please. Just get me out of here."

"Let's go," says Barnes, and grips her bicep tightly as he hustles her toward the back of the alley, the other two men close behind.

* * *

Peggy Carter's already waiting in the hangar when they return, and her eyes narrow as Barnes, Jackson, and McCarthy hustle out of the plane, Barnes hauling a woman with a hood over her head over his shoulder. "The President's dead. Johnson's been sworn in, and—good God, did you kill her?" she asks.

"No," says Barnes, and unceremoniously dumps her to the floor, her legs sprawling out. Jackson leans down and unmasks her, and sea-green eyes look up at Peggy, vague recognition stirring there.

Peggy has to fight her own surge of dislike. _Really, I oughtn't to hold a grudge,_ she thinks. "Good evening, Miss Romanoff."

"I know you," says Natalia, eyes darting up and down her body. "The woman—didn't we just meet?"

"Just meet?" Peggy crouches down, not wanting to frighten her. "What do you mean?"

"It…it couldn't have been more than a few months ago," insists Natalia. "You came and got my target. You knocked me out. Don't you remember?"

"That was about eleven years ago," says Peggy. She recognizes the look in the woman's eyes: it's rather like Barnes' initial state when they'd brought him in. "It's currently nineteen sixty-three. That mission of yours was in nineteen fifty-one."

"No," says Natalia, looking aghast. "That can't be right. It was only a few months ago."

"I think they were freezing her, too, and wiping her," says Bucky.

"What do you recommend we do?" asks Peggy.

"Confinement. She's not stable and she's dangerous. I have a list of her trigger words. I don't believe they work for her how they worked for me. I was trained to obey the commands of whoever spoke mine. I think she was programmed to become a blank slate when she heard them."

"Blank slate," Natalia whispers, looking at the floor as if she's not quite in the room.  "I… I wish to defect from the Soviet Union."

"You what?" Peggy blinks.

"Defect. I wish to defect to America. Someone…someone will help me."

"I'll handle the paperwork," says Peggy gently. "Jackson, McCarthy, well done. Go home and rest."

"Did they catch the man who shot the President?" asks Jackson.

"Yes. Some man called Oswald. He was arrested for shooting a police officer after the assassination." Peggy rubs her temples.

"They had another man," mutters Natalia. "They didn't _trust_ me…"

"No, I expect not." Carter offers a hand. "I expect you'll want a bath, too."

Natalia eyes the proffered hand and accepts, letting Peggy help her up. "I don't know," she says.

"Are you hungry?" Peggy tries, looking at Bucky over Natalia's shoulder.

"You shouldn't ask that," says Natalia, suddenly becoming agitated. "You should drag me into a room and interrogate me or make me run drills or—" The color goes out of her cheeks, and she staggers.

"Hey, hey," says Bucky, stepping forward and catching at her. "When did you last eat?"

"I don't eat until I complete my mission," she answers, as if he should know that.

Peggy frowns. "Have her taken to Block One. I want her supervised by a few of Doctor Anderson's nurses. I'll have food brought up for her. Heaven knows you can't defect on an empty stomach."

* * *

After being bathed and dressed in a simple pair of plain gray trousers and a shirt, Natalia has a meltdown when approached with a tray of food. She knocks it out of the nurse's hands, screams, throws whatever's not nailed down, and huddles in a corner, repeating over and over that _it's a trap_.

Bucky stands at the viewing window and sighs. "Great. She's going to starve herself to death."

"Even the most sophisticated programming can't possibly override the instinct to eat," says Peggy, but doesn't sound very sure. "Perhaps you could go in and speak to her."

"I'll try it, but who knows what good it'll do." Barnes taps out the code to the door and steps in, shutting it behind him. Block One is more like a dormitory with very high security measures: every room has a bed with a mattress, blankets, a pillow, a sink and toilet in a cubicle, a table, two chairs. "Hi," he says, ignoring her repetitive muttering in the corner as he picks up the knocked-aside sandwich and bottle of milk. "Good thing this didn't break. You thirsty?"

She is, as she turns to look at him warily. Her lips are cracked, and a pink tongue slips out to wet them. "Don't," she repeats. "It's a trap."

"It's not a trap," he says, unscrewing the lid. "It's milk." He casts about in his mind for something that will put her at ease: it's been so long since he's broken out of the way he was programmed that he has to put effort into going back there. "State extraction protocol for a wounded Widow."

The words come out in a stream. "Extraction protocol dictates that the Widow must withdraw for as long as she must in order to allow a superior to find and extract her. If wounded, she may aid herself."

"Being hungry is a wound," says Bucky. "Isn't it?" Loopholes were important, _so_ important: you had to worm your way through them to do anything under programming. Natalia's eyes flicker to meet his. "If you starve or dehydrate, you will die," he prompts. "Yes?"

"Yes," she echoes, faintly.

"A Widow is allowed to aid herself. Eating and drinking is aiding yourself. You can eat." He extends his hand. "If you want me to drink some first to prove we didn't poison it—"

"Do it," she orders, eyes fixed on the bottle as if she's hypnotized. She doesn't look away, not even when he lifts the glass neck to his mouth and takes a swallow, lowering the bottle.

"Come here," he coaxes, wiggling the bottle. "Drink it. It's all right."

Natalia inches closer, and closer, and snatches the bottle out of his hands, not bothering to squirrel herself back away into the corner as she tilts the bottle up and gulps down the milk, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and licking it to get every drop.

She is nothing like the woman he remembers from last night; she is everything like the woman he remembers from last night. "You want to eat the sandwich?"

"Save it for later," she says, snatching up the cellophane-wrapped sandwich and stuffing it under her mattress. "Got to…save it. Protocol. I don't…" She paces for a moment, but her hunger overcomes her and she digs the food back out, tearing apart the wrapper and eating it in seconds.

Bucky takes a long look at her. Natalia's damp hair hangs undone across her shoulders and her eyes dart back and forth. _She's evaluating,_ he thinks. _Whether or not she should stay. Whether she can._ He knows, because he'd done it, too. "Do you remember… last night?"

She stops licking her fingers. "No," she tells him.

Bucky's heart sinks. He doesn't know why the hell he expected anything different: her brain's been zapped, all the wires crossed. She probably didn't even mean half the shit she said. Maybe she didn't even know what she was doing; maybe she'd been programmed to—

That thought hits him like a punch to the gut. If she'd been _programmed_ to adapt her way out of anything, she couldn't have been sincere about anything she'd said or done. Bile rises in his throat. "I'll go now," he says thickly, standing up slowly. "I'll… if you want me to come back, I'll come back."

She considers that. "Tomorrow," she requests, not looking at him, but at the wall. "Will you come tomorrow? And stay?"

That's a Saturday: he's got nothing going on. "Sure," he says. "I'll come tomorrow and stay."

Bucky steps out of the holding cell and Peggy catches him by the elbow, almost scaring him out of his skin. "What did you mean by _last night_?" she asks, eyes narrowed.

He drags his hand across his face. He'd forgotten about the one-way mirror. "Uh. Jeez. Look—"

She sighs. "I've had two children, Barnes; one of whom you were present for the birth. I highly doubt you can tell me anything that I'm going to be shocked by."

"We slept together," he manages, ears on fire. "It wasn't—I didn't _plan_ it, okay? And I'm aware that's a gross violation of procedure, and—and if you want to put me on probation, I'll submit myself for—"

"That won't be necessary," Peggy says gently. She looks through the one-way mirror: Natalia is pacing the room, looking around with dull eyes and staring at her own reflection for a minute before she rips a strip of cloth from the sheet and lies on the bed, tying her wrist to the frame before curling up on her side. "I expect it could be marked down as an extenuating circumstance, and not a lapse in judgment."

"She's—" He struggles to find the words. "She understands…things about me. Things I don't understand. And I don't know how, or why. But I understand _her_."

"Yes, you would, wouldn't you?" muses Peggy, tearing her eyes away. "She'll be given a full physical exam as soon as possible."

"She wants me back tomorrow. I can probably arrange something with Doctor Anderson."

"Excellent. I shall leave her in your most capable hands, then." Peggy squeezes his shoulder. "It's been a long day, Barnes. Go home."

He doesn't go home. He pulls up a chair in front of the one-way mirror, and he watches Natalia.

* * *

"Mommy!" cries Sarah, bowling into her mother at Mach 2 as she comes through the door. "I waited up _all night_ —"

"You certainly did; it's nearly ten," says Peggy, hugging her daughter. "Where's Dad?"

"In the garage. Jamie's asleep." Sarah squeezes her mother around the waist. "We heard on the radio the President got ass—assin—"

"Assassinated," says Peggy, feeling far more serious. "Yes, I'm afraid so. Lyndon Johnson is the new President now."

"What about Mrs. Kennedy?" asks Sarah, trailing after Peggy to the kitchen. "Are they gonna make her move out of the White House? The kids are so little."

"I don't think so," Peggy tells her, getting down a can of Ovaltine. "Would you like some cocoa?"

"Yes, please," says Sarah, settling in the kitchen chair. "How did they assinate him?"

"Assassinate," Peggy corrects absently, heating the milk on the stove. She doesn't believe in watering things down for children. "He was shot twice from a long way off and behind him by a man who used to be in the Marines and had become a Soviet. One of the bullets went through his head, so he died very quickly, I think, and it may not have even hurt." _Of course,_ she thinks sourly, _it likely hurt his wife more._ She had liked Jackie Kennedy, even if she did like French clothing a bit too much for Peggy's taste. Bloody Chanel this and that: did _nobody_ remember the woman had been a Nazi?

Sarah considers this. "Teacher called us all in at recess and made us stand for respect. Someone said there was going to be an atom bomb dropped by the Soviets and how—how this was just the first part. Were they right?"

"Absolutely not," says Peggy with some heat as she stirs the Ovaltine into the hot milk. "You know those drills you do at school, darling—those are in case of an emergency."

"But they think it's gonna happen," insists Sarah. 2

"Well, who's more qualified to tell you what the Soviets are planning, hmm?" Peggy turns with the two mugs. "Your mother, who works for the government, or your teacher?"

Sarah's legs kick back and forth. "You," she admits.

"Precisely. Therefore, no reason to worry unless I tell you."

"Grownups never tell kids anything important," Sarah grumbles.

"That," Peggy says, "is because children, as a rule, do not have very good judgment as to what should be kept a secret and what should not."

"Like when Mary's cat had the litter of kittens and she told everyone, and then they all got stolen out of the shed when nobody was looking?"

"Precisely. Drink your Ovaltine."

They sit amiably together, gulping the cocoa. "When do I get old enough to have good judgment?" asks Sarah when her mug is empty.

"Later," promises Peggy. "Much later. Perhaps if you study very hard at school and get excellent scores on your tests, you can come and work with me. Would you like that?"

Sarah's face lights up, blue eyes wide. "Yes!" Then her face falls a little. "Would James come too?"

"If he wants," Peggy says, smiling.

"Are you sure I can't have a sister someday?" she asks, looking hopelessly depressed.

Peggy smiles wryly. They'd considered perhaps _one_ more child, but the timing had never seemed right, so Steve had gotten a quick procedure at Walter Reed done five years back, and just for good measure, Peggy had had her tubes tied. There would be no more children born to Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers. "No, darling, I'm afraid not. You'll become better friends with Jamie as you both get older. This age is tough on siblings."

Sarah sighs. "In health class they told us about pugerty. I don't want to do pugerty."

"Pu—oh, _puberty_ ," says Peggy, trying not to laugh. "No, nobody does, but it comes for the best of us. Don't worry. Your poor cousin Anna started a little early and your uncle didn't know what to do at all, so I had to step up and help out a bit."

"But Anna's so grown-up," says Sarah. "Am I really gonna look like that? With, you know—" She holds her hands out in front of her skinny chest. "Those?"

"Well, if you're anything like me, you will," teases Peggy. "I think I started growing those—goodness, about eleven. It was awful. But it all worked out in the end. Besides, the doctors said you might have yours a bit differently than other girls, so we shall just have to wait and see."

"Can't I _please_ just grow up without all the cycle stuff and the awful parts?" begs Sarah.

"I wish," Peggy says, patting her daughter on the cheek. "It is, however, a package deal. Go brush your teeth and get to bed, Sarah-bear."

* * *

Steve's hunched over a workbench in the garage when she finds him. He's got on his working around the house shirt, and he's repairing James' bicycle chain.

"It's nearly ten-thirty," she says gently. Uncharacteristically quiet, he re-seats the chain on the bicycle, and turns to the wall, wiping his greasy hands on a rag. She tries again. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

"I thought I could stop it," he says softly, and Peggy realizes that he's got tears in his eyes. "The assassination, I mean. I don't know. I thought coming back…I knew it was going to happen, Peggy. It just crept up on me. I didn't know if I should say something or not."

She feels uneasy suddenly. It's been so easy to forget over the past ten years that this man, her husband, is like some changeling from a distant future. "It happened in your time, too?"

"Yes." His eyes find hers, blue and wet and frightened. "We rooted out Hydra, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't _enough_. They're contracting out to foreign governments now, and who knows what kind of power they'll have by the turn of the millennium?"

"They're not in _our_ government," Peggy says. "Not anymore."

Steve sits on the stool at his workbench. "We don't know that," he whispers. "I feel like—like I came back and couldn't stop any of it, and I'll have to watch it all happen again and I won't be able to do a damn thing."

"You have me," says Peggy simply, and that seems to shake him up a little.

"Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, Peggy. I have you."

"Whatever comes," she murmurs, coming to stand between his knees, "whatever happens, we will tackle it head-on. You, and me, and the children once they're old enough. We're a family. A team."

"A team," he echoes, and his hands drift up her hips to her waist. His fingers are trembling a little.

"Yes, darling," she murmurs. "Come to bed."

He nuzzles his head into her chest and breathes deeply, and warmth spreads down her blouse. "The kids asleep?"

"They are," she replies, fighting a shiver as his fingers slip under her skirt. "Did you have an activity in mind?"

He glances up, blue eyes gleaming. "How d'you feel about being on the floor?"

"Of the garage?" Peggy grins. "I'm all for it."

Steve lurches up, finding her mouth with his, and pulls her down to the cold, dank floor, pulls her into his lap, pulls her close as he fumbles with his fly. "Tell me I did the right thing," he begs, tugging her briefs aside with two fingers. "Tell me I made the right choice—"

"You did, you did," she whispers, cradling his head as she kneels across his lap. "Steve, you _did_ —"

With a half-strangled sob, he drives himself home, and she begins to move, gently, trying to be as soothing as she can as Steve buries his face in her neck, clinging to her back like she's the one thing tethering him to time and space. "I love you," he gasps, his fingers fisted in her blouse. "I love you, I love you—"

"Always, my darling," she whispers, and it doesn't take long at all before he shudders beneath her, hips jerking up erratically as he empties himself into her, gasping for air in the crook of her neck. He's sweating, despite the chill of the garage, and Peggy strokes the back of his neck until his pulse slows and he kisses her shoulder. "Better?" she asks. Her knees are cold, but not sore.

"Let's go inside," Steve says into her hair. "Let's go to bed."

"An excellent idea," she tells him.

* * *

 

It's Saturday morning when Bucky stirs from his place on the hard bench outside Romanoff's room to see a nurse armed with a pair of reinforced cuffs heading for the door. "Hey," he barks. "What are you doing with those?"

She jumps, looking startled. "Oh, Agent Barnes—they're for the prisoner. She needs to be up at the medical floor in a few—"

"Don't walk in there with those," he orders. "She'll attack you. I'll handle it."

"Did you hear they arrested the guy who shot the President?" asks the nurse, stepping aside. "I can't believe it, really." She shakes her head. "Poor Mrs. Kennedy."

"Yeah, I think I did," he says, even though he can't remember at all. Bucky goes to the door and keys in the code. "She's asleep," he says, hand on the door. "Wait here and don't let her see those straps."

"Yes, sir," says the nurse.

Bucky heads in. The place is dimly lit between 2100 and 0600, but Natalia is still passed out, chest rising and falling. If she's faking being asleep, she's very good at it. "Hey," he tries, and she stirs, raising her head from where it's pillowed on the arm tied to the bedframe.

Green eyes, bleary with sleep, focus at once on him, evaluating: he can almost see her mind working as she decides he might not be a threat and sits up, untying her wrist. "Ready for orders," she says.

"You're going to receive a full medical evaluation," he says. "You requested I accompany you, so I'll accompany you."

She nods, sliding off the bed. Barefoot, she only comes up to his shoulder, and follows him out as docile as a housecat. That's new, but it doesn't make him trust her any less.

The elevator up is awkward, as he's not sure he cares to be in _quite_ such a confined space with her, but they emerge onto the medical floor with no issues and she doesn't seem to share his own old phobia of doctors, sitting down where she's asked to and being handed a paper gown to change into.

Bucky makes to leave, and she jumps off the table, barring his exit from the room. " _No_ ," she begs, eyes gone from placid to terrified in 0.2 seconds. "Stay."

"I—they—you don't want privacy?" Bucky blinks at her.

"No. You promised. You would…stay."

Maybe she _does_ have a fear of doctors after all. "Okay," he says. "Where do you want me to sit?"

Natalia takes that into consideration and pulls him by the arm, pushing him into the solitary chair where her folded clothes are sitting. "There."

That's when Doctor Anderson comes in. Bea's now solidly middle-aged, but the awkward lankiness that had characterized her early twenties is gone, replaced by a fuller figure and broader hips and shoulders. A pair of reading glasses perches on her nose, and her hair, as curly as always, is cut short, fluffing out around her head. She certainly doesn't look forty. "Good morning, Natalia," she says, sitting down in the other chair. "Is Agent Barnes going to be sitting with us today?"

"Yes," says Natalia firmly, climbing up on the examination chair.

Beatrice is very nonchalant about it. "Well, he's a good choice. Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions, just about how you feel and things like that. After that part, I'll do some physical examinations, and after that, if you feel up to it, we can go down to the gymnasium and test your physical strength and agility."

"When do I see the doctor?" asks Natalia.

"Oh—I'm the doctor," Bea explains. "Doctor Anderson. Do they not have women doctors where you came from? It's still a little bit rare in America, too."

"Not…always," Natalia says hesitantly. "Comrade Kudrin, who gave me the gift. She was a woman."

"Was it a good gift?" Bea opens a folder.

"It made me strong," Natalia says distantly, as if she's being drawn away. "No… and yes. I don't know."

Bea nods. "Do you want to stand on the scales for me? We'll get your height and weight and vitals before we begin."

Natalia eases off the chair and stands with her back to the scale and measure, facing out into the room. Bea acts as if that's totally normal, and takes down her weight and height, then listens to her heartbeat with a stethoscope and takes her blood pressure. "All seems normal, heartbeat a little quick but that's to be expected under the circumstances. So, now for the questions. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," says Natalia.

"We'll get you breakfast after your bloodwork's done," Bea assures her. "Can you tell me how you feel emotionally?"

"Emotionally," repeats Natalia. "Tired, I think. I defected, didn't I?"

"You sure did, and you're under SHIELD protection now."

"I was going to shoot the President. I think I'm… sad about that."

"Sad that he's dead?"

"No, sad that I failed my mission. It's…" She eyes up Dr. Anderson, as if she's worried the woman will turn into a Soviet scientist. "It's not a good thing to fail. I will be punished."

"Not here, you won't be," Bea says.

"I don't think sad is the right word. I don't… I don't feel anything at all, really. Should I be?"

"However you feel is an all right way to feel," says Dr. Anderson. "You have gone through programming that has rewired your brain to work differently than it ought to. The brain, you see, is a machine. It can be repaired, but it's an organic machine. There are sometimes hang-ups and setbacks, but with enough work, you can make it run correctly again."

"You don't know anything about it," Natalia says suddenly, anger flashing across her features. "You stupid American doctor. You don't know _anything_."

Beatrice is entirely unperturbed. "No," she agrees. "I do not. But I do know that, for instance, when you were being sharp with me, I was upset just now. But my brain has been programmed by myself to remain calm, even when a patient is being rude, because I know they don't mean what they say: they're just angry and scared."

Natalia opens her mouth and shuts it again. "I'm not _angry_ ," she mutters.

"Really?" Dr. Anderson asks mildly. "It would be a natural emotion to have."

"Maybe a little," Natalia admits, stealing a glance at Bucky as if to confirm that's the right thing to say.

He shifts his weight. "There's no right or wrong answer," he tells her.

"Oh." She turns back to Bea. "Are we done talking about feelings?"

"For the time being, if you like. I'm going to give you a physical examination now. Is that all right?"

"Yes," says Natalia, as if she can't figure out why she's being asked. Dr. Anderson opens a drawer and puts on a pair of latex gloves.

"Would you like Agent Barnes to go out of the room? This involves parts of your body being exposed that are normally covered by clothing," Bea says, checking the chart.

"No," says Natalia firmly. "He stays."

Bucky stares at the wall in mortification as she lies back and Bea gently runs her hands down Natalia's arms, presses gently on her breasts, palpitates her abdomen, checks her legs. "Any pain?"

"No, just hungry," Natalia says, looking vaguely interested.

"When was your last cycle?"

Natalia blinks. "I… don't… I don't have those anymore."

Dr. Anderson looks down. "Yes, you have a small pair of scars just below your navel. Do you remember if it was a tubal ligation or something else?"

Bucky _really_ doesn't need to be in here for this conversation. He stares at the wall harder.

"No, they took…they took the ovaries," says Natalia, eyes wide. "I remember! I saw them on the tray. They were white… like little eggs…"

"I see," says Bea, writing that down. "Well, you needn't worry about your cycle, then."

Natalia's hand is curled into a fist on the exam chair. "It was a long time ago," she whispers, looking pale. "A long time ago. Not now."

"Yes, a long time ago," says Bea gently. "You're all right now."

Natalia's fist loosens. "Do you need to do an internal exam?"

"That would likely be best," says Bea, pulling a speculum out of a drawer along with what looks for all the world to Bucky like a tiny toilet brush. "Are you all right with that?"

"Yes," says Natalia, and she spreads her knees when directed, blankly staring up as Bea gently opens her and swabs.

"Hmm," says Dr. Anderson, looking interested as she examines the swab. "When was the last time you had sexual intercourse, Natalia?" she asks as she sets the little wand aside.

Natalia blinks. "I… I don't remember."

Bucky goes red from his throat to his hairline. "A day or two ago," he says hoarsely. "Evening of the twenty-first."

"I see," says Bea, not looking at him.

"Really?" says Natalia, turning her head to give him a confused look. "With who?" It doesn't seem to bother her at all that she's had sex and can't remember it.

Bucky wants to run from the room. He has no idea what to say, but Bea saves him, thank God. "You're not harmed, so no worries there. Are you sore?"

Natalia wriggles her hips, but she's still frowning at Bucky. "Not really. How do _you_ know I had—"

"It's not important right now," he says. "I'll tell you later, if you still want to know."

"Well, we'll take another swab in a week," says Dr. Anderson, pushing her glasses back up on her nose. "No sex, no douching. I'll put you on some antibiotics, just in case. You can sit up."

Natalia gathers her gown about her and sits up, scooting back uncomfortably. "Douching?" she asks, as if unsure of what the word is.

"If you don't know, you're probably fine," says Bea, smiling. "No liquid squirted up the vaginal canal, if you please."

"Why would anyone do _that_?" asks Natalia, mystified.

"Beats me," says Bucky, and she gives him a quick smile, then looks away as if she's forgotten her place.

"Are you feeling up to a physical test in the gym?" Dr. Anderson shuts her folder.

"I think so," says Natalia, inching off the examination chair.

"I'll let you get dressed. Will you let Barnes come with me for a moment? He'll be waiting outside when you're done."

Natalia considers this and nods. "Right outside," she says, looking at Barnes, and he nods, then follows Bea out to the hallway, feeling like he's a bad child being sent to the principal's office.

She rounds on him the moment the door's shut. "Barnes. Please do not tell me you slept with that woman."

Bucky's face goes scarlet with heat. "I—it's not like I _planned_ it, it just happened, it was a mistake and Director Carter knows—"

"I'm sure she does," snaps Bea. "God! Bucky, you don't know what she might be infected with. I'm going to treat you just in case, antibiotics and penicillin—unless you can look me in the eyes and tell me you used a condom."

He can't even look at her shoes. "Go ahead and give me the meds."

Dr. Anderson whacks him sharply with the file folder. "I hope Director Carter dressed you down. Wait here." She steps around the corner and comes back with a syringe. "Shirt," she orders, and as Natalia opens the door cautiously she catches Bucky wincing and fumbling with his shirt buttons one-handed as Bea turns her back and hands him a paper bag.

"What's that?" she asks, watching him struggle.

"Medicine," he says shortly, fiddling with the buttons. "Can't even rub my arm."

"Let me," she says, and Bea watches closely as Natalia buttons his shirt back up carefully, then lays a finger on his shoulder. "Here?"

"Yeah," he says, and lets her rub at his arm. "Thanks."

She shrugs. "I saw a man in Stalingrad once with no arm, and he had a great metal claw sticking out of his sleeve instead. I felt… I felt sorry for him. It was more noticeable than not having anything at all."

"I don't want your pity," he says roughly.

"Don't you?" she asks, and he doesn't really have an answer, even as she's walking away with Bea.

* * *

She absolutely blooms once she's in the gym. Natalia passes every single fitness test they give her with flying colors, and though she doesn't have the sheer force of strength Peggy has (something about the serum must bring out a quality reflected in the inherent traits of the person to give various possible results when exposed, Bucky thinks: they must have come close to Erskine's formula) she's flexible and quick and more agile than a gymnast, able to flip off the walls and turn on a dime mid-sprint.

"Ballet," she says at one point, poised on the balls of her foot as she pants for air. Her eyes light up. "I remember. _Ballet_. I… I was a dancer."

After that, they can't get her to stop dancing. She turns and leaps and executes perfect arabesques, going _en pointe_ barefoot in an almost manic performance. Bucky just stands there watching with the doctors until she's winded herself, sitting on the mat and gasping for air as sweat sticks her red hair to her forehead and cheeks.

He goes over to her and squats. "Feeling better?"

"It was you I slept with, wasn't it?" she asks, and Bucky blinks.

"Yes." There's nothing else he can really say.

Natalia drives a fist into the mat, but it's more out of frustration than anything else. "Those bastards hated me going off-script," she mutters, then looks up, slightly frightened. "I didn't—not—that's treason—"

"It's all right," says Bucky, sitting. "They are bastards."

Natalia looks shocked at the transgression, but a gleeful smile plays at her mouth. "Bastards," she agrees, like a child who's just learned a bad word.

Bucky remembers how terrifying it had been for him to cross that threshold, to realize in a breath that Hydra didn't own him anymore and that he had to make his own decisions, and the pull that he'd had to fight: because it's so much easier to remain a _thing_ that does as it's told and never has to think than it is to be a free person who makes their own path. "Fucking bastards," he says.

Natalia springs up to her feet in a smooth movement. "Fucking bastards," she echoes, and picks up one of the batons they keep for sparring, marching over to the punching bag. "Fucking— _bastards,"_ she spits, and hits the bag like it's a baseball at Fenway Park and she's Babe Ruth. "Bastards— _bastards—"_

"Don't," says Bucky, stopping the security agents who've been assigned to watch her as they start to move.

"But she's becoming violent—"

"To a punching bag. Ease off. Let her work it out."

The baton cracks in half and Natalia flings it away, attacking the bag with both hands, knees, legs, kicking and punching like a madwoman. "Bastards!" she screams, and that's followed by a flood of Russian that Bucky roughly translates as " _cocksucking motherfuckers with their heads up their own fucking asses, eat my shit you shithead sons of bitches_ " before the bag splits and sand hisses out to the floor.

Natalia stands there, hands shaking as she watches the sand fall. Bucky approaches, careful and quiet.

"If you ask me if I'm feeling better," she says, sounding drained, "I'm going to hit you."

"I know," he tells her.

"I was given orders to put a bullet in your head as you were sleeping." The words are plain and straightforward, not much emotion behind them. "I didn't do it. I left you alive." She heaves a breath and turns on her heel to face him. "Can we eat breakfast now?"

"Yeah," says Bucky. "What do you feel like eating?"

"Sausage," Natalia tells him. "Toast. And… eggs, and coffee."

"I can make that happen. Come on up to the cafeteria. Don't punch anyone and you'll be fine."

"Ha, ha," she says sourly, but smiles when he turns his back and lets her follow behind him. "You realize you have your back to an opponent?"

"Wasn't aware you were an opponent," he says, leading her out of the room. "Thought we were getting breakfast."

She rolls her eyes. "It's a sloppy move."

"Mmm. Well, if you want your eggs and coffee, you better behave."

"I _am_ behaving. I didn’t do anything yet."

He chuckles. " _Yet_. Yeah. Come on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N-n-n-n-NOTES!  
> -Clint Hill is the only person still alive to this day who was in the presidential limousine when Kennedy was shot. He jumped off the running board of the car behind the limo, ran to it, flung himself over the back of the car, shoved Jackie Kennedy back into the seat and shielded her with his body as the car sped off to Parkland Memorial. He felt guilty for years that he wasn't able to run to the car fast enough to take the third shot to his own body.  
> -I really wish I had the time to properly go through Natasha's trauma and recovery, but as it happens my draft for this thing is already up to almost 160k words and I'm not even to 1980 yet, so I'm going to be doing more time jumps so this isn't the size of a Tolstoy novel. I may collect little vignettes and post them later, though.  
> -Dr. Beatrice Anderson Will Kick Anyone's Ass. She'll Kick Your Ass. She'll Kick Her Own Ass  
> -Bucky: "the risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math"


	28. July 20, 1969

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: period-typical racial/homophobic slurs

"Have I missed it?" demands James, skidding sideways into the living room.

"No, they're just showing the descent. Get in here!" Steve pats the couch, and James, all seventeen-year-old excitement, vaults over the sofa and crashes next to his father.

Peggy hurries in with drinks and gets herself situated in the easy chair, while Anna and Sarah sit on the floor and watch: Michael's hovering over the couch and Bucky's sitting on the floor with the girls. "It really doesn't seem possible, does it?" she asks aloud.

"Shh," says Sarah, eyes glued to the fuzzy black and white screen where the countdown is ticking away. The module lands, and the screen proclaims, LUNAR MODULE HAS LANDED ON MOON.

" _Tranquility Base here,_ " says the fuzzy, indistinct voice on the television. " _The Eagle has landed_."

The screen cuts back to Walter Cronkite, who removes his glasses and rubs his hands in relief.

"They did it!" crows Anna, delighted.

" _I'm_ about to turn blue," says Michael, and that gets a laugh from the living room.

Steve ruffles James' hair, and they all stay glued to their seats until the black-and-white, fuzzy broadcast comes through, ghostlike movement on the surface of the Moon as Neil Armstrong  slowly makes his way down the ladder to the surface.

ARMSTRONG ON MOON, says the screen.

" _That’s one small step for man…"_ says Armstrong, thousands of miles away and right on their screen, " _one…giant leap for mankind."_

"Jesus," says Steve hoarsely, tears on his cheeks. Peggy shoots him a look, and sees him wipe his eyes. "That's… that's sure something."

* * *

In the kitchen, as Michael insists on making cocktails, cigarette clamped between his lips, and the kids (although they're really both teenagers now, and Anna a twenty-three year old college graduate) sit in the living room animatedly talking, Peggy takes Steve aside.

"You all right?" she asks gently.

"Yeah. Just… remembering why I came back," he says, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"You guys going to Howard's wedding?" asks Bucky, sipping a Manhattan as he leans against the counter. "In a month. I know he invited you."

"Maybe," says Peggy. "It's quite the trip. Who on earth gets married on a Friday?"

"Mom, can we go?" asks Sarah, poking her head into the kitchen. " _Please?_ "

"We got invited, too," says Anna, "and I heard the Prince of Wales even got an invitation." She sits up a little straighter and tucks her hair behind her ear.

"I doubt he'll show," says Peggy, smiling. "Bucky, don't you have a flat up in New York?"

"Oh, the apartment. Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "They're doing a private ceremony at the new house and a reception at the Waldorf-Astoria. Big shindig. I might not stay for the whole thing."

"Well, we might just have to take a day and go make a weekend of it," says Peggy. "I do have about a hundred sick days saved up. Perhaps we might take the children by where Steve grew up."

"I'd watch where you go in New York," says Bucky, sipping at his drink. "There was a riot in Greenwich a month ago and the police are still pissy."

"What kind of riot?" asks Anna, curious.

"Nothing you need to—" begins Michael quickly, only to be interrupted by Steve.

"It was at a bar called Stonewall. Well, it was a, uh, not a regular kind of bar." He gives Michael a look, and the other man's mouth presses into a thin line. Steve sighs. "She's twenty-three, Michael. She's not four." Age has only seemed to make Michael Carter more and more of a conservative, clinging to the past stubbornly as everyone else moves forward, but he relents.

"Fine," says Michael, looking exasperated.

"It was a gay bar," Steve explains, turning back to Anna. "There was an altercation with the police, and people were throwing bricks and cans and things. It—you know being a homosexual or a cross-dresser is illegal in New York City, right?"

"Yeah," says Anna. James is poking his head in now, looking interested.

Steve considers his words. "Yeah. So this bar was, or had been, owned by the mafia—"

" _Neat_ ," says James.

"—and the mafia was paying off the police to not come in and really raid the place, because they didn't have a liquor license. Usually they got tipped off before the police came, you know, like it was a deal—the cops show up early enough that the party can keep going after they arrest a couple of people. That night, there wasn't a tip off, and they started pushing folks around. The patrons decided they weren't gonna be pushed around anymore, so they started fighting back."

"How do you know about this?" asks James, fascinated.

Steve smiles. "Your mom has an old friend named Angie. She performs in the bars down there in Greenwich and got caught up in the riots with a couple of her friends. We bailed her out and she told us all about it over the phone."

"Good for them!" Anna says. "It's like the antiwar protests." She quickly catches herself and shoots her father a guilty look. "Which—I've only heard about those, I mean. In the paper. And on TV."

Michael sighs. "Anna, I told you I don't want you involved in that anti-government nonsense. Your aunt works for an intelligence agency, for heaven's sake. How do you expect to get a job—"

She rolls her eyes. "Dad, nobody _cares_ if I passed out flyers once at a parade—"

"Next thing you know, you'll be pouring blood on furniture in someone's Senate office—"

James and Sarah withdraw silently, giving each other awkward looks. "Michael," Peggy interrupts. "I think Anna's an adult with a perfect right to her own opinions on the war."

"There's having an opinion and there's being a criminal," Michael snaps. "She only found out about those rallies because some professor of hers got the idea in her head. Now you've told her about this. She'll be joining up with the Gay Liberation Front and swanning about New York with a pack of limp-wristed swishies, burning police cars and being dragged off to prison before August—"

Anna turns and flees out of the kitchen to the safety of the living room. "Michael!" Peggy puts her hands on her hips. "That was utterly uncalled for, I'll have you know."

Michael goes red. "How is she supposed to amount to anything if—"

"She's a _grown woman,_ and I know while the prospect must be terrifying—"

Bucky gives Steve a look, and both of them slip away quietly from the arguing siblings, back to the living room, where Anna's crumpled up in a chair watching TV listlessly and James and Sarah are messing with a puzzle. "Hey," Steve says, sitting on the floor next to her.

"Hi," she says, wiping her eyes. "Gosh, I'm sorry, Uncle Steve. I didn't mean to cause a scene—"

"If anyone should be apologizing, it's your dad," says Bucky from his spot on the sofa.

"Did you really go to a protest?" asks Sarah, looking up.

"Yeah," says Anna. "But all I did was hand out flyers and things like that. And…okay, and I had a sign saying 'Get The'—uh—" She looks at Steve. The raised voices in the kitchen are still loud enough to mask their conversation.

"Go on," says Steve.

"It said 'Get The _Hell_ Out Of Viet Nam'," Anna whispers, and James looks impressed.

"I have to sign up for the draft next year when I turn eighteen. I don't know if I want to, though. Nobody else in my class will shut up about how they're gonna go fight the yellow man."

"You don't have to be drafted if you're in college," Steve reminds him. "And we don't say 'yellow man', we say 'Vietnamese'. Remember, a lot of the people being killed over there are just farmers who want to be left alone."

"But aren't we fighting communism?" asks Sarah.

"We're supposed to be," says Bucky dourly, kicking his foot against the carpet. "What people tell you and what the truth is are sometimes two different things."

Steve shoots Bucky a look. He's still a little put out that he hadn't been told Natalia Romanoff had defected six years back until three years ago, but he can't blame Bucky for not wanting to tell anyone where SHIELD had stowed her. _She's doing great,_ he'd said, _monthly therapy and an apartment in Queens and round the clock security._ New identity, too: she was going by Natasha Rushman now. Steve hadn't been able to force himself to go see her, even though she'd asked about him several times according to Bucky. He's also not going to ask Bucky why he's spending so much time in contact with the woman: he's fairly sure he knows. "You bringing that redheaded girlfriend of yours to the wedding or what?"

Bucky chokes. "She's not—I don't—I don't have a girlfriend," he says.

"Yeah, right," says Sarah. "You shave more now and you don't look grumpy all the time."

"I did not look grumpy all the time. Anna, did I look grumpy all the time?" He turns, appealing to Anna, who grins.

"You did look grumpy all the time. Sorry, Uncle Bucky."

"Dammit," mumbles Bucky.

"So, do we get to meet the plus one?" Steve grins: he kinda likes needling Bucky. _Fair's fair, jerk_.

"Maybe. I'll ask if she feels up to it. Quit jerking my chain."

Peggy and Michael emerge from the kitchen, Peggy serene-faced and Michael very grim-looking. "Anna," he says tightly. "I apologize."

"That's all right, Dad," she says, looking at the carpet. "I just… sometimes I feel like I got out of one regime and into another."

"Regime—" Michael presses his mouth into a line. "Anna, this is America, not the Communist Bloc."

"Yeah, and America's supposed to have freedom of speech, but college students are being put in prison for exercising their rights." Anna looks at her father. "I'd almost rather be back in Russia. At least there you knew what the rules were and they didn't change."

"Don't say that," says Michael firmly. "Don't you ever say that. You have no idea what the Soviets forced me to do. What they would have forced you to do. You were too young to remember—"

"I remember enough," Anna murmurs, and her fingers encircle her wrist, twisting and rubbing. "I just want to make a difference. I want to change things."

"Some things don't need to be changed," Peggy says softly. "Not immediately, anyway. We take smaller steps, one at a time, and things can be transformed gradually. Instant change is a recipe for revolution and blood and more war, and I'm sure none of us want that."

* * *

"Hey! Rogers!"

"Don't pay attention to him," Sarah orders her brother quickly as they walk down the street on their way to the pool. They're usually safe from the bullies as long as they stay on their street, but anywhere else in the neighborhood is fair game, and of course the summer is no reprieve at all. She's not looking forward to high school much.

"What, you think just because you're in my school now you can boss me around?" James mutters, hefting his bag higher on his shoulders.

"Rogers! I'm talking to you!" It's the bellow of Bobby Martin, who's been a shadow James hasn't been able to shake for years, and his cronies: Jack, Jimmy, and Ricky O'Hare; the two Grundle brothers Robert and Herbert, and Dick Thompson. All of them are on the football team, all of them are as tall as James, and Bobby shouts with the glee of someone who's just discovered a tasty secret.

Sarah turns on her heel. "Which Rogers d'you want?" she yells. "Me or James?" That gets a laugh from the other kids walking down the street: everyone's heading to the pool today, apparently.

"I don't fight _girls_ ," says Bobby, regarding her with disdain. "I heard your cousin's a stupid dove hippie, Rogers."

People start pausing on the sidewalks to watch. James gives him a cool look. "What about it?"

Jack O'Hare advances. "You'd better sign for the draft next year, Rogers. Cancel out your stupid cousin. My older brother's a Marine and he's out in Vietnam shooting all the gooks he can see while people like your cousin throw a baby fit over the war."

"How d'you know about my cousin anyway?" demands James.

"Your dumb sister told Jane Young, and Jane told Sally Smith, and Sally told my sister Kathleen," says a smirking Jimmy O'Hare.

"Which brother is it that's fighting again?" asks Sarah rudely. "I can't keep any of you O'Hare's straight. Someone ought to tell your mom she's not a rabbit."

A low "oooh" goes up from the growing crowd of peers, and Jimmy goes purple. "You'd better shut your mouth about my mother, Sarah Rogers."

"You'd better shut your mouth and not say _gook_ to me if you want to keep the rest of your teeth," snaps James. It's a well-placed barb: the O'Hare family isn't the sort that shells out for dentistry on the regular (as if they could afford it with nine children) and Jimmy's front incisor and an adult canine have been AWOL since he was thirteen.

"Aw, whassa matter?" jeers Bob Grundle. "Your sissy daddy don't let you say meanie pants words?"

"At least my dad knows how to speak," says Sarah angrily.

"I didn't know your dad knew how to speak at all," says Dick Thompson. "I thought your ma does all the talking and he just sits in the kitchen."

James spreads his feet apart, ever so slightly, a hint of steel in his brown eyes. "I'm not signing for the draft. I'm going to college, and there's not a single one of you man enough to stop me."

"Ooh," sneers Bobby Martin, rolling up his sleeves. "Big talk from a _sissy_." More kids have stopped on the sidewalks to watch, sticky in the July heat.

Sarah grabs James' elbow. "Don't!" she hisses. "You'll kill them!"

He jerks his arm away, furious. "This is _your_ fault. You told Jane about Anna and now everyone knows. If they want to fight, let 'em try."

Sarah opens her mouth, but she's yanked backward, off the sidewalk and off her guard by Ricky O'Hare, who's as small and lithe as a weasel and looks like one too. He's got his fingers stuck in the back of her sundress, and she twists around, slapping at him. "Get off me!" She's far too afraid to use all her strength: what if she kills him?

"Hey!" shouts James, stepping forward. "Let go of my sister!"

"Uh-uh," jeers Ricky. "She can watch you get the stuffing knocked out of you just fine from right here. Ain't that right?" He twists Sarah's hair, and she shrieks, high and loud and thin, and James goes right for Ricky without a second thought.

A great hue and cry goes up from the assembled spectators as James hauls off and punches Ricky so hard he goes sprawling to the ground with a bloody nose. Sarah gets up, drops her own bag, and barrels straight for Jimmy O'Hare, who's coming to defend his brother: he goes down like a sack of wet cement as her shoulder drives into his belly and knocks him flat off the curb and into the street. A watching girl starts laughing, and Jimmy shrieks as Sarah sits on him and punches him in the face, James already dealing with Jack, who's ineffectually trying to get hold of him as he dodges and weaves. The yard is laughing. Jack goes red in the face, and James knocks him over, then turns to greet Bobby and the Grundle brothers as Sarah stands up from the twitching Jimmy.

Bobby cracks his knuckles. "You think you're a boxer or somethin'?" he demands, eyes darting back and forth between James and Sarah.

"Guess you'll have to find out," snaps Sarah. "Unless you're too scared to fight a girl."

Bobby Martin lets out an angry yell and goes straight for her. He gets one good punch in, which barely rocks her, and she lands a blow to his cheekbone before James gets in the way: James headbutts Bobby, who reels backward, and Dick steps in, hands around James' throat. James tries to headbutt him too, but it doesn't budge Dick, who's a big, meaty running back. Meanwhile, Sarah's handling the Grundle brothers. They're both built for power, not speed, so it's really only a matter of time before she knocks their heads together and leaves them out cold next to Jimmy, then turns back just in time to see Bobby pulling his fist back to punch James in the face as he's being held in place by Dick.

Bobby Martin puts all the power he possesses into the punch, and his fist stops a foot from James Rogers' face. He looks down, and sees a hand curled around his fist, stopping all his momentum— _one_ hand, not two, and the hand belongs to fourteen year old Sarah Rogers, who's glaring at him with her blue eyes on fire. "Don't you ever touch my brother or me again," she snarls, and before he can say knife a blow hits him in the face so hard he sees stars before the pavement comes up to meet his cheek.

"Police!" screams a lookout. "Cops'r coming!"

Dick evaluates his losses, releases James, and makes a mad dash for it, not even bothering to look at his fallen compatriots. Sarah examines her own injuries (a torn strap on her sundress, a broken fingernail, and a scratch) before looking at James' (small bruise above his eye, marks on his throat) and sighs, holding her flapping top up with one hand.

"Dad's gonna be mad," she says.

He grins at her. "Who cares? They're not gonna mess with us again, are they?"

"James and Sarah Rogers!" shouts Officer Green, whose neighborhood beat this usually is, as he storms toward the scene. He stops for a moment and takes it in: scattering crowds of incredulous kids, six unconscious ones, and the Rogers siblings standing unhurt among the chaos. "What the hell is going on?" he splutters.

"A lot of stuff, Officer," says Sarah politely. "My brother and I would like to go to the station and wait for our father, if that's all right."

"I—I—" The man opens and closes his mouth like a fish. "Yes. I think you had better come with me. What on earth got into you two?"

"The Vietnam War," says James soberly as he follows Officer Green to the waiting car. "C'mon, Sarah. I'll help you fix your dress."

* * *

Steve enters the police station, which has a remarkable little crowd already gathered outside composed mostly of gossiping neighbors, and makes straight for his kids, marching into the bullpen without even looking at the front desk. Both his children are sitting on chairs in Officer Green's cubicle very properly and straight-backed, eyes downcast and hands folded. Sarah has a borrowed jacket draped on her shoulders, her strap pinned to the front of the dress with a safety-pin, and James is still in his T-shirt and swim trunks.

"Mr. Rogers," says Officer Green, a doughy little man with glasses who keeps fiddling with his pen. "I appreciate you coming down. I am so sorry that you had to take time out of your schedule to—"

"Not at all," Steve interrupts. "What did they do?"

"There was an altercation in the street by the community pool," says Green. "I must say I am shocked: your children have never been troublemakers to my knowledge."

Steve looks at James. "There must be a good story behind it," he prompts, and James meets his father's eyes.

"I… Bobby Martin and his gang were trying to make me say I'd go into the draft. They called Anna a dove hippie and said I should go kill—kill—" He shoots Green an uncomfortable look. "Kill _gooks_ to make up for it, and then Ricky O'Hare hurt Sarah so I knocked down Ricky. Then Sarah knocked down Jimmy, and—uh, we knocked down everyone, I guess, but Sarah got Bobby Martin good."

"Your children seem to be very stubborn, Mr. Rogers," says Green, looking agitated. "I assure you I am attempting to get the true story out of them. There is no possible way that your fourteen year old daughter licked a senior class running back, even with the help of her brother—"

"I did too," insists Sarah, looking up. "You can ask anyone who saw it. It was just us."

"Young lady," says Officer Green with the air of a man at the end of his store of patience, "If you expect me to believe that you single-handedly won a fight against three boys older and stronger than yourself—"

"They're _not_ stronger than her—" James begins, but is silenced by an icy look from his father.

"I'll take them home," says Steve politely. "I'm sorry for the trouble, Officer."

"I want the true story," Green insists. "How am I supposed to fill out an incident report if the culprits fill my head with made-up—"

"I'm _not a liar!"_ Sarah cries, almost in tears.

"Okay," says Steve, resting his hand on Sarah's shoulder and squeezing gently. "Here's the true story. James has been targeted by bullies most of his time here, unfortunately, due to the way our family is, what with my wife working." Green nods suspiciously. "James is a good kid, you said so yourself. They're not troublemakers, they're both good kids. I think what happened is that these bullies came for James again and he'd had enough, and you said there were a lot of people around, right? Kids?"

"Yes, but—"

"So I'm sure after Sarah was pulled into it punches were being thrown by bystanders. Nobody wants to see a young lady being hurt." Steve squeezes Sarah's shoulder firmly twice as she opens her mouth, and she shuts it immediately. "There's your explanation, Officer Green. Of course they weren't alone."

"Well," says Green, sitting back. "Yes. I see. All right." He sighs. "A fine of fifty dollars has been conferred upon each of the other young men for fighting in the street, but I can hardly allow your children off scot-free for the same infraction. I believe a fine is also fair—"

"You're gonna punish us for defending ourselves?" demands James, red in the face.

"I'm afraid it's a law, young man. No fighting in public."

"I see," says Steve tightly. "I'm taking my children home, Officer Green. Good day." He pulls out his wallet and tosses a hundred dollars onto the table as if it's chump change. "There's your fine."

Green's mouth opens and closes like a fish, and Steve takes both his kids by the arms and gently hustles them out of the room and down the hall into the lobby, which by now has filled with nosy bystanders, witness to the fight, stopping in awe to gaze at the long-rumored and rarely-seen father of James and Sarah Rogers.

Steve knows he's still in excellent shape, despite his age: he's gotten some more silver hairs at the temple and a few deeper smile lines, but he certainly doesn't feel or look a hundred and twenty-five. It must leave an impression, because a few of the younger housewives blush and quickly turn away and a lot of the boys look stunned. **_This_** _is the sissy dad that Bobby Martin was always talking about?_ he hears from a few corners, spoken in hushed tones.

"What happened?" asks a redheaded girl about Sarah's age who scurries up to them.

"We got arrested," says Sarah, eyes full of tears, "and it's 'cause _you_ can't keep a secret, Jane Young."

The redhead gapes and runs for the nearest washroom, and thankfully there are no further incidents until Steve gets them both into the Studebaker and slides into the driver's seat. "Well," he says, starting the car, "I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did."

"You _lied_ to the _police_ ," says Sarah, still aghast.

"Yup." Steve reverses and pulls out into the street.

"He had to," says James sourly. "Or else everyone would have figured out we're different."

"That's about the long and short of it," says Steve, tiredly rubbing a hand across his face. "And I hate to say it, but we're probably going to have to pull you both out of Washington-Lee."

"But I'm supposed to go there in the fall! Is it because I hit Bobby?" Sarah cries, tears rolling down her face again. "Dad, I'm _sorry_ —"

"It's not your fault, sweetie," says Steve gently. "Neither of you are to blame for this. But it happened, and it's not something folks are going to forget by September. We gotta move forward."

"What am I gonna do?" James asks. "I was supposed to graduate next year."

"We'll talk to your mom about it," Steve tells him. "She'll know what to do. She always does."

* * *

"You've done _what?"_ Peggy demands that night over dinner. "I've half a mind to not take either of you to Mr. Stark's wedding at all. James, how could you let your sister do it?"

" _Let_ her?" James protests. "Mom, you should have seen her. Sarah knocked the stuffing out of three of those guys and barely got a scratch."

Pride wrestles with motherly distress on Peggy's face as Sarah pipes up. "Honest, Mom. I didn't even get hurt—"

"That's not the point," Peggy says at last. "The point is that if a good many people discover you're—well, that you're—"

"Freaks," says James glumly.

"You're not freaks," says Steve, pouring himself more water. "You're just a lot stronger and faster than normal people."

"We're not normal," points out Sarah, poking at her mashed potatoes with her fork. "So we're freaks."

"You're special," Steve insists.

Peggy sighs. "Yes, well. If too many people discover you are the way you are, the consequences could be severe."

"You're always saying that," James complains. "As if we're gonna be kidnapped or something off the street 'cause we can punch people real good."

" _'Really_ _well'_ , and yes, you just might," says Peggy sharply, exchanging a look with Steve.

He sighs and starts unbuttoning his shirt. "Dad, what are you—" begins Sarah, shocked.

"I don't think—" Peggy begins.

"No," says Steve gently. "They want to know. They're teenagers, they're old enough to act up and get noticed; they're old enough to know." He gives his wife a meaningful look, and after a moment Peggy concedes, looking down.

Steve takes off his shirt, standing at the dinner table in his T-shirt. "You know we don't generally scar, right?" he asks. "We're a fast-healing family."

"Dad, what—" James begins, looking curious but confused as Sarah nods.

Steve pulls his T-shirt off over his head and turns to face the wall, and both of his children suck in surprised little breaths at the sight of the two matching white scars along his spine, flat and silvery in the light. "They looked much worse in 1951," he says matter-of-factly, turning to look at the table.

"What _happened_?" Sarah asks.

"There is," Peggy says carefully, "an organization that has existed since World War Two, which both your father and I have been fighting against for a very long time. Your father and I—we used to be like ordinary people, you understand."

"You never told us that," says Sarah, shocked.

"I was given a serum in 1943 that made me…like this," says Steve, gesturing at himself. Sarah lowers her eyes and sips at her milk, giving James a sideways glance he doesn't catch. "Your mother received a similar serum in 1951. When we had you two, it… it passed on to you: the abilities, the strength and the resiliency."

"But—" James still looks confused. "Who gave you the scars?"

"Your father was kidnapped by the people I mentioned earlier: three agents from three different countries took him." Peggy gives her son a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. "They were trying to take samples of various body components to recreate the serum that he was originally given."

"Samples," says Sarah, looking queasy. "Like…blood?"

"Blood," says Steve. "Other things, too. We're eating, so I won't—"

James stands up too fast too track with an ordinary eye and clenches his fist. "Who _are_ they, Dad?" he demands. "The people who did that—"

"That's extremely classified," says Peggy. "But now you understand why we don't want you two exposed to the world quite yet. If anything was to happen—you're not trained, and even though we've been trying to keep a low profile _someone_ might say something that get back to these people."

"Are we going to have to move?" asks Sarah.

Steve pulls his shirt back on. "No, honey," he says. "We'll give it the rest of the summer and your mom'll keep an ear out, and if people are still talking about the pool incident by September we'll do something about it."

"Like what?" asks James.

"Likely put the pair of you in different schools," says Peggy. "If any unsavory person's looking for a pair of siblings, it may be simpler to just split the pair of you up."

"I don't want to go to a different school," Sarah exclaims. "I only just got into James' school and—"

"My darling, sometimes we can't have what we want at the moment," says Peggy gently but very firmly. "Now, we'll say no more about it for the rest of the summer and go have a jolly time at Mr. Stark's wedding next month. Sarah, I've made an appointment for the both of us to have new dresses made. Steve, you're in charge of taking James to get a new suit jacket. At the rate we're going, he'll be too big for his old one before Friday."

* * *

Bucky unlocks his apartment door and slips in, tapping out a light rhythm on the door: _tap ta-tap ta-tap tap_. It's their signal, and he can smell Chanel No. 5 and roses somewhere in the apartment. _She's here_.

He sets his bag down, stripping off his jacket. Coming home used to be depressing: a time of day when he'd be alone for twelve hours with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Now he looks forward to it. "Nat?" he calls, keeping his voice low.

"James," she responds, husky and low from the darkened bedroom door. All her red hair is loose and long and trailing, and she's wearing this green slip that _really_ sets off the rest of her, as if she needed a stitch of clothing to look good. Barefoot, she takes a step forward and the floor creaks gently. "Good trip?"

"Mmm-hmm," he responds, eyes fixed on her breasts, which really shouldn't be that much of a distraction, but here they are, full and firm and just begging to be— "I have a wedding to go to Friday. Don't suppose I could entice you to come."

She smiles. "A wedding?"

"Yeah. A certain someone asked me to bring you."

"Ah," says Natasha, and tilts her head. "I see. Someone who used to have one name and now has another. Very interesting company you keep."

"Says the ex-spy waiting in my apartment." Bucky slips his shoes off. "I missed you. God, I really missed you."

"You were only gone for two days." Natasha leans against the door frame.

"So sue me," he murmurs, coming in close. She smells so, so good, and he just wants to wrap her in his arm and— "Let's go to bed."

"Mmm," she says, grinning up at him. "Yes. Let's." One arm snakes around his waist and she pulls him in, her soft mouth pressed against his. She's strong enough to press him up against the wall, and by the time she pulls away, bright eyed, he's already straining at the fly of his trousers.

"Natasha—"

"Shh," she whispers, nuzzling into his throat as her hands curl around his shoulders. "Bed. Come along." Natasha pulls him toward the bed and they both topple onto it, Bucky clumsily yanking her slip off with one hand, up and over her shoulders until her nude body is exposed: the dusting of red curls between her thighs, the smooth light skin, the breasts he loves so much. He reaches up and cups them.

"God, I wish I had two fucking— _hands—_ "

"You have a mouth," she says, and he wriggles down to suck at the free breast, licking and nibbling until she shivers slightly.

It had taken them some time to be comfortable with each other like this again. Bucky doesn't look back fondly on the days when she was locked down at SHIELD, but at least she hadn't been at much danger of regressing psychologically—the serum _she'd_ been given made her highly adaptable and a little suggestible, so she was able to snap back easier than he had been. He'd had to report that to Peggy, who hadn't been pleased at the implications to her own changes, but it did seem that the Russian off-brand stuff interacted with people based on their personalities, something like the original serum Erskine had brewed up—it was just that being a Widow in the first place changed a lot of someone's personality.

Then, of course, they'd had to tiptoe around the fact that they'd had sex in the first place. Sex had been a touchy point for Nat in the first couple of weeks: an activity that she'd been trained to perform like assembling a rifle or selecting a poison didn't have a lot of importance behind it, but after a few months of therapy she'd been more willing to engage in small gestures of meaningful intimacy—a hand on a knee, a kiss on the cheek, a hug.

And _finally_ …

Bucky lets a moan escape his mouth as Natasha pushes him onto his back and undoes the front of his pants. "You be still for me, now," she croons, mouth drifting close to the bare skin of his stomach, lingering on the scar where she shot him: faded by now to a silvery flat pucker-mark. He shuts his eyes and remembers their first _real_ time, not the explosive fever-dream in Dallas, but the time she'd pulled him into a custodial closet and said in hushed tones _I want to do it right this time_ and he'd almost cried of relief before—

Natasha's mouth closes over the head of his cock, and Bucky chokes, fist tightening in the sheets. "Nat—"

"Mmm," she hums, licking, the wet heat of her mouth snugly slick around him as she swallows him down. Her fingertips dig into his hip, rubbing slow circles into his skin. She hums again, and he shudders.

This is how she teases him: she knows full well he can't come like this, but she likes to draw it out and make him frustrated. Bucky endures it, flat on his back with his hand strangling the sheets, until she releases him with a pop and licks her lips. "Please—" he croaks, knowing he must look a wreck.

"So polite," she teases, and straddles him, rubbing herself back and forth along the length of him. "I missed you."

"Nat," Bucky gasps, finding her waist with his hand. "Can you _please_ —"

She tilts her hips and notches him in, then slides down, slowly, agonizingly: he doesn't flatter himself by thinking he's anything beyond _slightly_ above average in that department, but she's a petite woman. "Uh," she manages, wriggling on him.

"Do you—lube—" He keeps a bottle of K-Y in the drawer for situations like this, but he doesn't have the strength to stop her.

"No," she growls, hands on his chest. "No, I can do it—"

He reaches up and tweaks a pink nipple, and she moans, slipping down further until she bottoms out flat against his hips. " _Shit_ ," she pants, and begins to cant her hips, grinding down on him. "Bucky—"

"Let—let me," he begs, and she lies flat on him: he turns on his armless left side and curls his arm around her waist to hold her before driving in, even and deep. Missionary position is awkward without a weight-bearing limb on one side, and while he likes her on top just fine, sometimes he just wants to feel close to her.

He remembers the custodial closet, lit by a bare bulb: Natasha sitting on a table and yanking her trousers off in a panic, almost begging him and demanding at the same time, _I want to know what it's like when I decide to do it myself,_ and he couldn't say no, not when it was all he'd wanted for months. He'd taken her right there on the table, as gentle as he could, trying to make it good for her—

Nat moans, grinding her pelvis against his. "Missed you," she pants into his neck as her hands tighten on his back and shoulders. "Oh, God, _Bucky_ —" She stiffens, shuddering, and clenches down around him, crying out as she comes.

Bucky can't hold on after that, and as she's coming down, he finishes, white-hot release curling through him and leaving him drained and sated as he clings to her and falls away, limp and boneless on the bed. "Jesus," he says, when he can talk.

She kisses him on the forehead and gets up to clean herself up. Bucky feels a pang of sadness: no children will ever be born between them despite all their efforts to the contrary, but he does have a kind of family anyway. It's the sort you choose, not the type you're stuck with, and he's all right with that. So is Natasha, even though he does catch her sometimes in the street looking wistfully at mothers with baby carriages, or children.

"It's all right, really," she's said on more than one occasion. "I'm sure I'd be a terrible mother. Soviet Russia isn't exactly top of the line for learning child-rearing methods."

Now, however, she goes to the toilet while Bucky stretches out on the bed, pleasantly thinking about nothing in particular. Nat comes back and lies down, curling up next to him. "I was thinking," she begins.

"About what?"

She traces the raised line of old scar tissue at his shoulder where metal meets flesh. "We're not too bad-looking for a couple of fifty year olds," she tells him.

"Don't remind me of my age," Bucky teases.

"I mean—I could work for SHIELD and do some good in the world. I might be able to work for a long time. It might—I don't know." She huffs out a breath of air. "I wouldn't mind working on erasing some of my past actions with Hydra, or the USSR."

"I could put that into consideration when I go into work later," says Bucky, rolling over on his side. He lies wrong on the stump, and winces as dull nerve pain rockets up his shoulder. "New York offices could always use a special operations agent."

Nat knows he doesn't like to have a fuss made over him, so she ignores his expression as she raises herself up on her elbow. "Would you?"

"Sure. If you come to the wedding." He grins.

She rolls her eyes and flops back down on the bed. "Fine. But I want a new dress."

"Done," he says, kissing her on the shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOOoOOoOoTES
> 
> -I had to split this one into two chapters because it was so. friggin. long.  
> -I have a Real Job now and everything so updates may be more sporadic and less frequent. I've only just finished up chapter 31 and I'm trying to wrangle what I want to cover in the 1980s  
> -Michael's reference to pouring blood on furniture is from a very real Vietnam war protest that occurred in the sixties. A group of protesters stormed a Senate office and dumped blood on chairs and honestly? mood  
> -The history of gay rights in America is super interesting. You had the Mattachine Society, which had been around since 1950 and was started by a gay British communist named Harry Hay who actually left the Communist Party because he thought being gay wasn't compatible with being a communist, and their whole thing was presenting Being Gay as like a Neat Club, Hey Straights, We Are Normal Respectable People. Through the sixties they became shunted off to the right as more radical left leaning groups like the GLF took center stage and they were like "BITCH we are HERE and QUEER also FUCK YOU" and to back up a bit part of the environment surrounding Stonewall was the fact that in the early 60s the mayor of NYC was actively sending out cops to catch gay men by asking them out for drinks in plainsclothes, which had been put to an end by the Mattachine Society but they couldn't stop the State Liquor Authority from revoking licenses specifically from gay bars, so the only places gay folks felt remotely chill in were owned by the mafia who paid off the cops to not raid the bars 24/7. (Oh and Harry Hay supported NAMBLA his whole life so uhhh. Win some, lose some.)  
> -can I get an amen for some more Buckynat


	29. July 27, 1969

"Golly, Mom," says Sarah, peering up in astonishment at the skyscrapers of Manhattan on one side and the greenery of Central Park on the other as they walk along Fifth Avenue. "This place is _huge_."

"Five boroughs," says Steve, chest swelling with pride as if he built them all single-handedly the day the Dutch arrived. "Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island. You're in the most densely populated place in America, kids."

"Where's Mr. Stark's house?" asks James, trying to look very adult in his new suit.

"Right up here," says Peggy briskly. She'd relented and chosen something a bit more fashion-forward for once: a yellow silk pencil dress with a deep scoop neckline, her hair done up, and a bit of more modern eye makeup on. Sarah had begged to be allowed to wear green eyeshadow, but Peggy had only relented if her daughter had let her apply it herself, with a fingertip. "None of that Elizabeth Taylor, up to the eyebrows Cleopatra stuff," she'd admonished. Sarah had also been allowed to iron her hair flat, and it hung in a glossy sheet down her back. Her light green dress, which was close about the neck and left her arms bare, hung like a bell-shaped sack and ended just above her knees. "Come along, the pair of you, and remember your manners."

"Yes, Mom," says Sarah, and follows her mother up the steps of an enormous brownstone, where Peggy knocks on the door and waits.

"I needn't remind you the same," says Michael, who's following behind with Anna. Anna sighs: she looks very nice in her own dress, a light blue silk, but nods anyway.

A man in a morning-suit opens the door. "Name?" he inquires automatically, but his face changes at once when he sees who's standing there. "Miss C—Mrs. Rogers!" he exclaims. "And Mr. Carter! And family! How very lovely to see you all!"

"Good morning, Jarvis," says Peggy, smiling. "How are you and Mrs. Jarvis?"

"Oh, very well, very well," says Jarvis, beaming as he stands aside and lets them all file into the foyer of the house, which is already full of people in dresses and suits. "My goodness, I haven't seen these two since you brought them to—what was it, that Department of Defense dinner in 1958?"

"1959, I'm afraid," says Peggy. "James put his hands in the punch-bowl and Sarah managed to crawl under a table and promptly got sick on Ambassador Alphand's shoes, so I refrained from bringing them to any further dinners until they were old enough to understand the words _international incident."_

"Mo-om," hisses James, embarrassed.

Peggy pretends she's just remembered something. "Ah, yes! Introductions, proper ones this time. Mr. Jarvis, my son James Michael Rogers, aged seventeen and my daughter Sarah Elizabeth, fourteen. Children, this is Mr. Edwin Jarvis, Mr. Stark's butler and an entirely irreplaceable old friend of mine. This is my brother Michael, who you met—oh, some time ago, and his daughter, Anna, who's just graduated college."

"And of course we mustn't forget Mr. Rogers," says Jarvis, smiling as he extends a hand to Steve, who shakes it. "Please, let me show you into the drawing room."

Anna catches Sarah by the elbow. "This is _huge_ ," she whispers as they follow Jarvis into the large room, which has been set up for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and is practically stuffed with the cream of New York society. He announces them politely and they move in, shaking hands and saying hello to various people who walk up. Michael makes directly for the punch bowl.

"All right, you three," Peggy says, turning on her children and her niece. "Anna, I shan't insult you or Sarah by implying you need to baby-sit, but you're each limited to one glass of champagne. Am I quite clear?"

"Yes, Aunt Peggy," says Anna.

"But Mom," James argues, very quietly. "It doesn't _do_ anything to us—"

Peggy's nose flares. "James, I fail to see how a roomful of people watching a seventeen year old boy gulp down a gallon of champagne in an hour with no effect will be _good_ for your reputation."

"Oh," he says sourly. "Yes, Mom."

"Watch out for your sister. I'm going to walk the room with your father. Keep an eye on us and if I wave you over, for heaven's sake come over.  Right. Let's see how well you follow directions." Peggy kisses her children on their cheeks and moves off with Steve, hand tucked into his arm. He looks very nice in his new suit, which has been impeccably tailored, and Peggy doesn't miss the looks he's getting from various women— _and_ a few men. _Howard keeps interesting company nowadays_ , she thinks.

* * *

"Mr. James Barnes and Miss Natasha Rushman," announces Jarvis, and Steve turns, shocked.

Bucky's in a suit that's been tailored to not have the sad flapping sleeve: the black fabric ends in a sort of socked closure at the stump, and he's shaved and gotten a haircut—he looks healthier and happier than he has in years. On his arm is—

Steve half chokes. It's _her_ , it's Natasha, but the absurdity of seeing her just as he remembers her, only in a late 1960s hairdo with cat-eye liner and wearing an avocado green gown with a chiffon cape makes him want to burst out laughing.

He's saved when she makes straight for him, smiling. Beside him, he feels Peggy stiffen a little. "Mr. Rogers," Natasha says, holding out her hand. "I'm so glad I came."

Steve shakes her hand gently. "I'm glad you're here, too," he says. "My wife—"

"We've met, yes," says Peggy shortly, meeting Natasha's eyes. "You may not remember."

"I remember," says Natasha simply. "I'm sorry. I—" Her eyes light on Sarah and James, standing with Anna. "Oh, those must be your children," she says, sounding almost longing.

Peggy can't help but relent, and beckons to the kids, who come up promptly. "Yes. This is James, and this is Sarah. And this is—"

"Anya," breathes Natasha, eyes wide and huge as she stares into the other young woman's face.

Anna goes pale, and Michael, at the side of the room, starts making his way over with his cane, face set. "I…I'm Anna now," she stammers.

"I see," says Natasha. "I don't suppose you remember me at all. Or maybe you do."

Anna's turning more and more pale, so pale she's almost gray. "Comrade… Comrade Romanoff," she gasps. "You taught us… _ballet_ sometimes…"

"Anna—" Steve grips her arm. Peggy looks around, ready to cause a distraction if something happens: every hair on the back of her neck is standing up.

"I was as old as you are now when I saw you last," Natasha whispers, looking shaken. "Can it really have been that long? Little Anya…"

"You haven't aged at all," Anna says. "You haven't…"

"What is the _meaning_ of this?" snaps Michael, and gets a look at Natasha's face before going pale himself. "You. _You."_

Bucky holds his arm out. "Whatever you're upset about," he says under his breath, "just know we've _all_ done things we knew we shouldn't have—"

Michael's purpling now. "In case you're forgetting, Barnes, this woman _shot you_ attempting to kill me—"

"Yes," says Barnes harshly, "and I shot Peggy attempting to do my job, and you yourself aren't innocent in the least by your own standards. At least have the decency to judge yourself by whatever stick you're judging Natasha by, if you can't see the world in shades of gray like the rest of us."

People are staring with interest now, whispering behind their hands. Michael jerks away from Natasha and seizes his daughter by the wrist. "We're going home," he snarls. "I'm not going to sit in a house with this woman—"

"Wait, _no_ ," Anna begs, and yanks her arm free. "Natasha—please, my mother." She's barely holding onto her emotions, her lip trembling. "Do you know who she was?"

"I…" Natasha looks from face to face, green eyes wide. "I don't know. My memory is… it's in pieces, you understand. Not all of it flows in a line. But if you'd like, we can talk later."

"There will be no talking later," Michael says coldly. "We're going back to the hotel."

"Dad—" Anna's almost in tears.

"Michael, really—" Peggy catches his arm. He jerks his elbow out of her fingers.

"No. _No._ I risked everything I had to get my child out of Russia. I nearly lost my leg and you think you can just glide in here and scare her half to death with shock?" He jabs a finger at Natasha. "I forbid you to speak a word to Anna."

"You can't forbid me from anything," Anna says, hands clenching into fists. She might be only half-English, but the Carter side of her likes to rear its stubborn head at times. "I'm a grown woman. Go back to the hotel if you like. I'm staying here and I _will_ talk to Natasha if I want to. If you try to force me to go I'll scream and carry on in front of all these people and then we'll see how you like it."

Michael gapes, furious but helpless. "I—I—"

"Michael," Peggy says again, ushering him aside. "Go to the foyer and calm down. There's still fifteen minutes before the wedding's to start."

He doesn't say a word, just storms out with his cane, and Natasha hands Anna her handkerchief so she can dab at her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says, and she means it. "Would you like a peppermint?"

"Would I ever," says Anna tearfully, and pops the proffered sweet into her mouth.

"Are we kids the only people who haven't shot anyone?" James asks, trying to be funny.

"Not the time," says Steve sternly. "Go get your cousin a glass of water."

"I don't know what on earth's gotten into Michael," says Peggy apologetically to Bucky and Natasha as James rushes off, shamefaced. "I'm so sorry."

Natasha cocks her head, looking at the door he'd gone through. "Some men don't respond very well to growing old."

"He's hardly—" begins Peggy.

"Especially," says Natasha, "when his sister and her husband and their friend are all seemingly ageless." Her green eyes bore into Peggy's, and Peggy suddenly understands in a flash: how could she have been so _blind?_

"I—I ought to speak to him," she says feebly.

"After he's had time to cool down," says Steve, wrapping an arm around her. "I think—there, yeah. The butlers are moving everyone into another room. Should we go?"

"Yes," says Anna quickly, sipping at the ice water James puts into her hand. "We should. If the Prince of Wales turns up after all he _can't_ see me crying."

"He's two years your junior, you know" Peggy says, trying to hide a smile.

"Who cares? He's a _prince!"_

* * *

The ceremony is short and sweet, performed by a justice of the peace. Howard, white threads running through his dark hair and mustache, beams as he clasps Maria Carbonell's hands and vows to love, honor, and obey.

Peggy sits on the comfortable chair in the front row reserved for family and close friends (as if Howard has any family beyond the Carbonells now) and observes Maria Carbonell. She's pretty, in a rather old-fashioned way: large, prominently lidded eyes below high-arched brows, pointed nose, slim lips, lovely smile, soft browny-blond hair flipped at the bottom. Her dress is neither ostentatious nor plain, signaling good taste: they're not being married in a church, so she doesn't have a veil, only a white rose in her hair. Peggy almost regrets not having had the time to meet the woman properly.

The rings are exchanged and the couple presented, and they dart past the applauding crowd, with Howard shouting that he'll meet them all at the reception.

"Well, that's that," says Peggy, tucking a lock of Sarah's ironed hair behind her ear. "What say we make our way down to the Waldorf-Astoria?"

"Oh, Mrs. Rogers," says Jarvis, seemingly at her elbow without a noise or sound. "Might I impose upon you to accompany Mrs. Jarvis to the reception? She oughtn't to walk by herself."

"Really, Edwin," says a familiar voice, and Peggy can't help but beam as Ana Jarvis wraps her arms around her and kisses her on the cheek. Age has been nothing but graceful to this woman: she wears a long, floral-printed skirt and a cream-colored silk blouse, and her red hair, streaking with gray only at one temple, is worn up in a chignon, curls escaping around her temples and catching in her dangling bakelite earrings. "As if I'm incapable of walking six blocks alone. I'm fifty, I am not dead."

Jarvis splutters. "It will just make me feel much more at ease—"

"Thank you, Mr. Jarvis," says Peggy, smiling. "We will take Ana and meet you at the Waldorf. Now for heaven's sake, go: you have a couple of newlyweds to drive."

Edwin kisses his wife and hurries off like a shot, and Ana beams at the children. "Hello! I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure yet."

"Ah—this is James, that is Sarah, and that is Anna, my niece—"

"Oh, Mrs. Jarvis!" says Anna, beaming. "I didn't know you knew my aunt Peggy!"

"My darling little firecracker!" gushes Ana, embracing the other woman. "Of course I do, and I shall tell you all about our adventures together—"

"But how do you know each other?" asks Bucky, baffled.

"Oh—we met at an anti-war rally," says Anna quickly, smiling. "I tore my skirt tripping off a curb and she popped up quick as you like with a sewing kit and had me right as rain in half a minute."

"That I did," says Mrs. Jarvis, nose upturned. "And we thought how funny it was that we have nearly the same name, and had a jolly time marching along all day. I had no idea you were a Carter. No wonder I liked you so!"

"Oh before I forget—this is James Barnes, a very old friend of my husbands; this is his friend, Natasha—this is my husband, Steve." Peggy smiles.

"Ah," says Ana, giving Steve a perceptive look. "I see. How lovely to meet you at last, Mr. Rogers: I thought Edwin was mad when he told me about your first meeting with Howard—gracious, nineteen forty-nine it must have been."

"Well, stranger things have happened," says Steve, smiling. "Let's go down to the hotel before everyone else gets there first and eats all the food. I'm starving."

* * *

The Waldorf's largest ballroom has been decked out in flowers and decorations for the reception: waiters dart to and fro like mice, carrying dinners, and Sarah sits with James quietly watching the spectacle of the couples dancing on the ballroom floor to a live band.

"Wish they had the Beatles," she mumbles, sliding down in her seat. "This is old people music."

"Sit up straight, Sarah-bear," says James, elbowing her. "Look, Mom and Dad are having fun."

"Yeah, so are Uncle Bucky and his girlfriend. And all the single guys are dancing with Anna." Sarah kicks her feet morosely. "Quit calling me Sarah-bear. I'm not a baby anymore."

"They have filet mignon," James informs her through a mouth full of food. "And it's really good. Don't you want to try some?"

"Oh, you never do anything but eat." Sarah glares at her own hands. She wishes her nails weren't all bitten and ugly. Miss Rushman has a short, neat little manicure, and Mom has always kept her hands nice—even Anna stopped biting her nails, the traitor, and started painting them frosted pink to match her lipstick. She doesn't even have spots on her face anymore, and Mom won't let Sarah use concealer or powder on hers, saying her face needs to breathe. The only boys here are a couple of sons of some of Mom's coworkers who must know Mr. Stark, and the ones who aren't dancing with Anna are all too old and boring-looking to ask her to dance. She feels very young all of a sudden, like a stupid little baby plopped into the middle of a great big grown-up party.

Dad comes over, smiling. "Handed your mom off to Howard," he says, plopping down and drinking a glass of water. "You two having fun?"

"Sarah's moping 'cause there's no guys her age here," James says with his mouth full of bread.

Sarah flushes. He can read her like a book and it's _so_ unfair. "Shut up," she mumbles.

Dad sighs. "C'mon, kid," he tells her, holding out his hand.

"Da-ad," she whines. "I can't dance with _you_. That's silly."

"Sure you can. It'll be like when you were little and stood on my feet." He grins and wiggles his fingers. "One song, and then I'll switch with Uncle Bucky and you can dance with him. Huh?"

Sarah sighs. "Okay," she relents, and walks with Dad back to the dance floor, the band playing a Beach Boys song. It is kind of funny watching all the older people try to do the Twist, and she lets Dad yank her hands around playfully and swing her, twirling her around with absolutely no sense of rhythm. "You're awful at this!" she shouts in delight over the music.

"You bet I am!" he calls back, smiling as he twirls her again. "Wait—wrong way!" He tries to spin her in the opposite direction, and she laughs in spite of herself as he pulls her back and wobbles from side to side as another couple inches past them. It's impossible to be upset around Dad, especially when he's having fun. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah," she admits, and hugs him impulsively. Her head comes up to his shoulder by now, and the doctor told her she might be six feet tall. She's not sure how she feels about being taller than Mom; James is already past that point. Uncle Bucky swings his girlfriend over, and Miss Rushman smiles at Sarah brightly. She has a rosebud mouth that disappears when she smiles under her peachy lipstick, and Sarah is a bit in awe of how pretty she is.

"Hi there!" says Uncle Bucky. "Switch partners?"

"Ma'am," says Dad, who's always polite, and takes Miss Rushman's hand as Uncle Bucky sweeps Sarah away, twirling her with his one hand. She likes Uncle Bucky: he always smells like aftershave and peppermints and he doesn't smoke like Uncle Michael.

"Jeez Louise, you're getting tall," he teases, pretending to pull faces as she steps on his shoes and laughs.

"Your friend is really pretty," she tells him, grinning as the song switches over to a slow dance. "How did she know Anna?"

Uncle Bucky smiles, but it doesn't seem to get to his eyes. "Did your dad tell you anything about Miss Rushman at all?"

"No," says Sarah, interest piqued. "He just said she used to be a spy in Russia a long time ago, before we were born. I know Anna and Uncle Michael used to live there, too."

"That's true," says Uncle Bucky, but he sounds a little hesitant, as if he doesn't want to push on.

"I can keep a secret," Sarah says quickly. "Even from James if I gotta. I figured out Dad used to be Captain America in the war and I haven't even told him yet."

"Well, I don't have time for the _whole_ story," says Uncle Bucky, smiling for real this time. "But I'll tell you this. Miss Rushman used to know Anna when she was really little and still living in the USSR. She's like your family; she doesn't really get old as quick as normal people do."

"Uncle Michael was really mad to see her," Sarah muses, swaying back and forth.

Uncle Bucky sighs. "Yeah, well. She used to be a junior instructor at Anna's old school in Russia. It wasn't a very nice place, and we'll leave that where it is for now."

* * *

Steve Rogers can't quite believe he's dancing with Natasha Romanoff at Howard Stark's wedding reception in 1969, but weirder things have happened, including that jaunt to 2014 Asgard to return the Reality Stone and that _fascinating_ conversation with Thor's mother, so he takes it in stride as well as he can.

Natasha keeps looking at him as if she expects him to spontaneously turn into a bird. "Agent Johnson," she says, voice slanting into that half-teasing lilt he remembers so well. "You seem to have as many names as I do."

"Ain't that the truth," he says. "Glad you made it out."

She narrows her eyes and smiles slightly at the double meaning. "Your brother-in-law didn't seem quite as happy as you."

"No," agrees Steve.

"Pity. He was always cordial in the Red Room. They called him _Uchitel_." Natasha lets Steve twirl her into a graceful spin and steps back in flawlessly. "You're a good leader. Where did you learn to dance?"

"My wife taught me," he says, hand automatically going to the small of her back. "Both leading and dancing."

She grins. "You're cleverer than I thought you'd be."

"I had a good teacher."

"Not your wife?"

"Someone else." _You. It was you._

Her eyes go past his shoulder and she frowns. "Anna appears to be having a hard time."

"What?" Steve turns, and his blood goes up immediately as the sight: Anna's been backed into a corner by some senator's grabby handed son. "Why, that—"

"I'll handle it," says Natasha immediately, and releases him to walk over. He follows at a safe distance, and sees Bucky and Sarah out of the corner of his eye as they notice and draw off to the side.

"Get _off_ me," he hears Anna hiss as he gets closer. "I said I didn't—"

"Don't be a drag," drawls the man. "What, you don't like dancing?"

Her gray eyes flash with anger. "Not with your hands on my—"

"Anna!" Natasha glides over, all smiles and curves, and takes Anna by the wrist. Steve watches in shock: it's like she's become someone else, as if she's stepped into another person's body. "Oh my _gosh_ , where have you been?"

"I—" Anna's eyes dart to Natasha's face, relief and confusion written all over her. "Sorry, Natasha. I got held up."

"Natasha?" asks the man, eyes sliding over her like a slug on a leaf. "Cute name. Wanna dance?"

Nat flashes the guy a winning smile, then moves so quickly that Steve can barely follow it. Within the space of two seconds she's snatched a skewer off a table of kebabs, and has the pointy end jabbed up under the arm of the expensive suit the man's wearing, all in a way that makes it look as if she's just holding his arm. "What's your name?" she asks brightly, the man's face draining to the color of whey.

"R-Robert," he gasps.

"Robert." She bats her eyelashes at him. "I understand you came to this party to get your little prick wet. Don't bother my friend. In fact, don't bother women in general, ever again. I hope we're clear, otherwise I start looking for your lungs with this." She pokes him a little, making him squirm in fear. "Am I clear?"

"Yes—yes, ma'am, I mean—"

"Very good. Go." She drops his arm, and the man practically sets a new Olympic sprinting record as he darts for the doors to the foyer. A pity that nobody was around to see it, thinks Steve wryly.

Peggy bursts out of the dance floor, Howard and the new Mrs. Stark in close pursuit. "What—" she begins, staring at the skewer.

"Nobody's died," says Bucky firmly, giving Nat a look. 

She turns to Steve, looking exasperated. "You didn't even _try_ to stop her?"

Steve raises his hands in surrender. "What was I supposed to do, let the guy grope Anna?"

"What?" Peggy looks horrified. "Who— _who_ groped Anna?"

Sarah pipes up. "That guy in the suit who ran away, Mom."

"Oh, for—" Peggy turns back to the Starks helplessly. "I'm so sorry, Howard. I turn my back for a moment and the girlfriend of my children's godfather is threatening your guests."

"Hated that kid anyway," Howard says, waving a hand. "He usually gets drunk and leaves before eleven at all my parties, but his father's one of my biggest supporters, so he's invited by default."

"It wouldn't be a wedding without some excitement," says Maria politely, smiling.

Peggy chuckles. "I had better go make sure Anna's all right." She hurries off.

Howard claps a hand to his head. "Oh—that reminds me. Steve! I wanted you to meet Dr. Pym. Newest, brightest mind of SHIELD—where has he gotten to?" Howard swivels his head around and Steve follows suit. "Henry! Hank, where did you—"

"Here I am," calls the man loudly from a place to the left Steve is almost _sure_ he had just looked toward and seen nothing. He quickly shakes Steve's hand. "Mr. Rogers. I—it's a big honor. Big honor, sir."

"Thank you, Dr. Pym," says Steve. "I've heard a lot about you from my wife."

"Oh, please call me Hank. Director Carter's great," says Hank, smiling. He's a handsome younger man with longish, light brown hair and a wide smile, and Steve feels almost guilty: _I'm going to break into your lab next year and take your stuff._ "She's a great teammate, too."

"Team—teammate?" asks Steve, caught off his guard.

"Well, yeah!" Hank's smile slides off his face. "Oh. She didn't—she didn't tell you, did she—"

"Hank!" Peggy's marching over, smile plastered on her face. "What did I tell you about using the particles in _public_ —"

"It was two seconds, Director. I just wanted to get past the line to the men's room—"

"For heaven's _sake_ , someone could have seen you!"

"What's this about having a teammate?" Steve asks quietly.

Peggy brandishes a finger at Hank. "You and I are going to have a conversation on Monday you will _not_ enjoy, Doctor Pym."

"Yes, ma'am," he says guiltily as Peggy hustles Steve off to the side. Steve gives her a piercing look, and she sighs.

"All _right_ ," she mutters, up against the drinks table. "We're going on missions together. Not terribly dangerous ones, just quick ins and outs of places like Cambodia and Vietnam and—"

"And you didn't tell me," Steve supplements, looking down at her with his best _I'm not mad, just disappointed_ face. "Is that where you've been when you say you're taking a few days to go to Washington? _Vietnam?_ "

She reddens. "Steven Grant Rogers, I have not once, not _once,_ ever demanded you tell me anything, when I am fully aware you know _far_ more about what's in store for the pair of us than I do."

"That's different," Steve snaps. "Haven't you thought about what's going to happen to me and the kids if you get yourself killed?"

"Of course I have!" Peggy draws him aside, out of the way: the children are both occupied with Bucky and Natasha over by Anna. "I drew up a will. It's at the office in a safe. It's—it's a precautionary measure."

"A _will_?" Steve grips her by the elbow. "Peggy—"

"And I've taken out a life insurance policy," she continues. "Of which you are the primary beneficiary, and should I—should anything happen after the children turn eighteen, they'll get quite a sum as well. Of _course_ I've thought it through."

"You didn't tell me—"

"I didn't want to burden you with it!" She yanks her arm away firmly.

"There shouldn't be secrets in a marriage," Steve tells her.

"This isn't an ordinary marriage," she replies, sounding exhausted. "You know that. We both do."

Howard comes back around, Maria on his arm, both of them beaming. "Hey! You two and the kids can stay at the penthouse, if you want. I know it's probably a long haul back to Arlington, so—"

"Goodness," says Peggy, turning and looking at Ana Jarvis, who's dancing with Edwin in a perfect tango in the center of the floor. "Yes, I think we ought to take you up on that. Where are you going for the honeymoon?" She pastes on her best smile, ignoring Steve, who's still standing behind her.  He makes himself smile politely as well.

"Venice," says Maria. "I'm so excited, I've never been."

"Without the Jarvises, I'm afraid," says Howard, wrapping his arm around his wife's waist. "I might just keel over dead without him."

"Oh, you couldn't possibly: I'll be there," says Maria, and beams up at him, kissing him on the cheek.

"Oh!" says Howard, smiling. "When I get back, remind me to talk to you and Pym about maybe moving to Jersey for a while."

Steve suddenly experiences a wave of bizarre not-quite déjà vu: the knowledge that a man he watched die is going to be _born_ next year—the fact that he knows—or knew?—when both these people, standing in front of him, are going to die; the fact that Howard is _happy_ with his beautiful wife and they haven't even begun to feel the slightest speck of marital strife. He looks away and sees Bucky, swaying back and forth with Natasha, and jealousy (a very rare emotion for Steve Rogers) rears its ugly head. Bucky doesn't have kids; he'll never know how absolutely stressed Steve's been every single nerve-wracking day since Sarah and James figured out how to walk—

Suddenly, he thinks of Peggy being killed on some mission for SHIELD; of him and the kids standing in black at a grave, decades too early, all because of _him_. "Excuse me," he says tightly, and stumbles away, nausea gathering in the pit of his stomach.

"Steve?" Peggy sounds concerned, but he doesn't go back, instead making it past the door and as far as the foyer before he gets sick into a potted plant, hunched over with his hands on his knees. A waiter discreetly hands him a napkin and a glass of water, and he takes both just as Peggy skids out, horror on her face.

"I'm fine," he says shortly, gulping at the water.

Her eyes flash up and down him. "You never get sick. What—"

"I said I'm _fine_ ," he snaps, and her eyes narrow: Steve rarely raises his voice. Ashamed, he brings it back down to a normal register. "I think we should go."

"Yes," says Peggy icily, "I think we had better. I'll make excuses for you to everyone and meet you here in ten minutes." She turns on her heel and walks off, and Steve shuts his eyes, feeling sick again.

"Not going well?" asks a voice by his elbow, and he almost jumps out of his skin. Natasha is standing there, looking up with those bright eyes of hers.

"How long have you been standing there?" he asks.

"Long enough. We still have a conversation we let go unfinished," she says, looking him over. "You were going to explain how exactly we knew each other, back when—"

"No," says Steve heavily. "No, we didn't know each other. I knew _you_. You didn't know me."

"How can someone know a person and the other person not know them back?" Natasha's intrigued, drawing closer. "You're still as full of riddles as always."

"And I always will be," says Steve, "Natalia Alianovna Romanoff."

Her eyes go wide with shock, and her lips part as if she's about to ask a question, but the kids come out, followed by Peggy, and she withdraws with a polite _good-night_ , meandering away back into the room to look for Bucky.

"I'm not even tired," says Sarah. "It's only eleven!"

"High time for bed, the both of you," says Peggy firmly, and guides them out the door, to the street.

* * *

Howard's penthouse is enormous and lavish, decorated in a style somewhat updated from how Peggy remembers it, but still opulent enough to make her think she's in a castle. Sarah and James take a whole suite for themselves and engage in a pillow fight, and Peggy can't even hear them since they're on the other side of the building from the rooms she chose. Let them roughhouse all night if they like: there'll be no great rush to leave on a Saturday morning.

It should have been her and Steve choosing together, she thinks, but now he was hell-bent on sleeping in a separate room down the hall, leaving her alone in a massive bed with silk quilts and sheets with a higher thread count than her monthly salary. She lies on her back in her peignoir and stares at the molded ceiling. _I'm right, at any rate,_ she thinks stubbornly. Steve had had no right whatsoever to needle her about her work: she did what had to be done—

 _But he was right to be worried_ , whispers another voice, and she rolls to the side angrily. _You shouldn't have lied._

"Maybe I wanted some damn secrets of my own, thank you very much," she says aloud to the empty room. There's no answer from the walls, and she sighs. Steve had been cross with her after finding out that she and Barnes had been keeping that Russian woman under SHIELD's thumb, but that had been absolutely top secret, confidential information that had required Level Seven or higher clearance to even know about: she couldn't be blamed for keeping that secret. Her excursions with Pym were Level Eight classified: not even Bucky knew about those…

 _I've gone and let my work interfere with things that are more important,_ she thinks with a sudden burst of guilt. _The one thing that could ever be more important than my work: my husband, my children._

She gets out of bed, barefoot: she'd forgotten to pack slippers. Quickly and quietly, she throws on her robe, heads to the door and opens it, pattering into the dim hallway beyond. Her footsteps are muffled by the carpet, and just as she rounds the corner she nearly smacks into Ana Jarvis, who's had quite a bit to drink and is beaming, clinging to her husband's arm. "Oh!" Peggy gasps, startled.

"Mrs. Rogers!" says Ana, seizing her by the arms and kissing her on the cheeks with gusto. "Wasn't it a lovely party?"

"It certainly was—goodness, Mr. Jarvis, your necktie is all a wreck—" A wreck it is, and covered in Ana's lipstick to book.

"Thank you, Miss Carter," says Jarvis with as much formality as he can muster. "I—I must take my wife to—"

"Bed," finishes Ana, winking as she leans on him. "Where's your husband, Peggy? And why on earth are you wandering about in your nightie?"

"Oh, I—I—" Peggy goes scarlet and pulls the robe shut. "I was looking for him."

"You haven't quarreled, have you?" Ana takes her hand. "I thought I heard him in the Edison Room: light under the door, anyway."

She nods. "That must be it; the children are in the Marconi Suite. What on earth was Howard thinking, naming the rooms after inventors?"

"Any good house is a reflection of its owner. And now," says Mr. Jarvis, "we must go to bed. Good night, Director Carter."

"Good night, Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis," says Peggy primly, sidling off as they make their way down the hall to their quarters. She waits until they're out of sight before hurrying off toward the Edison Room, and she can see that there's no light under the door at all. _Perhaps he's fallen asleep already_ , she thinks, hesitating at the walnut door. Would it be worth it to even knock? Should she knock? He'd been silent, only muttering _good night_ before he'd taken a sharp right at the top of the stairs. Maybe he didn't want to see her.

"Go on, you coward," she mutters to herself, and pushes the door open.

The room is dim. She enters into a small sitting area and shuts the door behind her, stepping lightly across the floor and toward the slightly ajar bedroom door. A very faint light glows past it, and Peggy pushes the door open, peering beyond.

An old-fashioned four-poster bed: a sable blanket, thrown across the foot. The bed's rumpled and unmade, and in front of one of the large windows, shoulders gleaming like gold in the light of the small bedside lamp that illuminates the room, stands Steve, looking out over the city.

Peggy shuts the door. He doesn't move, but she knows he heard her. Nothing gets past those ears. But Steve doesn't move: he just stands there with his back to her staring out the window in his pajama pants and undershirt.

She draws closer, feet chilly despite the summer heat of the city, and waits for him to say something. While she does that, she looks at him; really looks at him. He's visibly aging, but not rapidly: he could pass for a man of forty-five, but something in the way he stands, or the way he holds himself: something makes him look old and weary.

"The city's only going to grow bigger," he says at last, without moving. "That doesn't take someone from the future to know, of course, but it's true anyway." He turns away from the window, and Peggy sees that his eyes are damp. "You see down by the Financial District? Those towers they're building?"

Peggy steps forward, looking out the window. Yes, she can see them: twin square skyscrapers, rising high above where Radio Row used to be: the construction lights are twinkling in the dark. "I see them."

"They're gonna become an icon of New York City," he says blankly, looking away from her and out toward the skyline again. "Postcards. Newspapers. Movies. People are going to work in them and sightsee from the tops and eat in the restaurant, and in the fall of two-thousand-and-one, a couple of terrorists are going to fly passenger planes into them. Thousands of people are going to die, and they'll collapse, and then thousands more people over in the Middle East are going to be killed in a war we'll start over the whole sorry mess." He turns to look at her again. "Wars and more wars, and it's just going to go on and on and on. No matter what."

Peggy feels a chill run up her back. "Perhaps it won't happen now," she offers weakly. "Perhaps we've changed enough of the events…"

"I don't think you can change some things," says Steve, shaking his head. "Or maybe you can; you just don't know it. I don't know. Howard and Bucky…" He rubs his temples. "I shouldn't be talking about this. I'm sorry."

"What?" asks Peggy. "What about Howard and Bucky?"

He shakes his head and sinks into a chair, resting his hand in his head. When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse and tight, wavering on the edge of tears. "In 1991, where—where I came from, Howard and Maria were killed in an…incident caused by the Winter Soldier. He—he was sent by Hydra to retrieve something Howard had…built, or made—"

Peggy freezes where she stands. "Barnes— _Barnes_ kills Howard and Maria?" she manages.

"He did. Or, I mean—he would have, I guess, if I hadn't interfered." Steve brings his hand away, and his expression is that of a man in anguish. "I don't—I don't know what's going to happen if Howard isn't killed: his death—it starts something, I can't tell you about what but it has an effect on something else and the only future I know for sure _will_ happen might not happen in _this_ place if it's not—and if I can't protect you or the kids—"

"You're working yourself up," says Peggy gently. "It's all right. At this point you might just know as much about the future as I do—"

"I can't lose you," Steve manages, his voice breaking. "I can't—you weren't supposed to be a super-soldier; you were supposed to die safe in your bed after a full long life and if you get killed on a mission with Pym I don't know what I'll _do_ —"

Peggy rushes over and kneels down, clinging to his hands as he begins to cry. "Oh, my darling," she whispers, shaking her head. "None of us are supposed to know the future. If things turn out differently, then—then that's what happens, I expect, and we'll all be none the wiser. Was that why you were sick at the party?"

Steve nods, tears streaming down his cheeks. "I didn't mean to fight with you," he sobs, burying his head in his hands. "I don't _want_ to—"

Peggy climbs up into his lap, kneeling, and embraces him, his head tucked beneath her chin. "Shh," she whispers, stroking his hair. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Hank. It wasn't fair to you."

His hands come up, clinging to her robe as he buries his face in her neck. "I don't care about Hank," he gasps, his hot breath soaking through her peignoir and into her skin. "Stupid thing to get upset over. I'm sorry. God, Peggy, I'm sorry—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," she murmurs, kissing his head. "Nothing at all."

Steve still sounds as if he's breaking. "I don't—I don't know how to _talk_ about it—"

"Don't talk," Peggy whispers, cupping his wet cheeks in her hands and making him look at her. "Don't. Don't think about it. I'm here; I'm with you, me and the children and everything's perfectly all right for now. Is that—can that be enough?"

He shuts his eyes, lower lip trembling. "Yeah," he whispers, voice cracking. "Yeah, Peggy. It's enough." One large hand slips up her back, burying itself in her hair. "It's enough," he repeats, as if he's trying to convince himself, and his mouth finds hers with a desperation she's never tasted on him before. His teeth find her lip, and she returns the favor with a nip or two of her own, her body warming to him quickly despite—or perhaps because of—the emotions rising in her.

She breaks away, fumbling frantically with his pajama pants. "Steve—"

He lunges forward and finds her again, chasing her mouth with his, pushing her back, out of the chair—they both topple to the floor, and he crouches between her knees, yanking the hem of her nightgown up past her waist as she struggles out of her robe and peignoir. "Just—just let me—" he's panting, and she suddenly knows exactly what he's going to do. They've experimented with various acts for the fun of it before, and this one had made her shriek and shy away in embarrassment before; now, with Steve's eyes glittering in the lamplight as if she's the only thing he's ever wanted in his life, she can't bring herself to feel silly about it at all.

"Go on, then," she pants, dragging off her underwear. He catches them, flings them aside, and buries his face between her thighs, lips moving frantically. Peggy gasps and clutches at the thick carpet, thighs clapped tight around his ears as he groans between her legs and licks, sucks, kisses. "Steve—"

"Mmm," he rumbles, and she has no choice but to cling to the carpet and cry out as he pushes her over the edge, her body shuddering as she crests quite unexpectedly and comes down, gasping as her legs fall away from Steve's face. He raises his head, face shining and wet, and kisses her belly. "Love you," he whispers.

She props herself up on her elbow. "Shall I return the favor?" she asks, feeling very bold.

"Not tonight," he whispers, moving up her body to kiss her chest and throat. "Bed. C'mon."

Peggy somehow makes it to the bed with him, putting him flat on his back on the sable blanket and straddling him, kissing him everywhere she can find. "What do you need, darling?" she whispers.

"Just you," he says, fingers trailing down her waist. "Just you."

Nearly twenty years of marriage, and this all still manages to seem so new and fresh to her. Peggy reaches down to take off his undershirt, dragging it over his head and flinging it aside. Steve's eyes are still shining as he looks up at her, a blush spreading across his cheeks; no, that will never get old either. "Sometimes," he says softly, stroking her sides, "I can't believe you're real."

"That makes the pair of us," she tells him, and kisses him on the nose before she pulls off his pajama pants, exposing his nude body and his thickening, half-interested cock, which is nudging at her thigh as she settles back over him. "I'll do it," she whispers, running her fingers through his hair. "You lie there and don't—don't move."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve says throatily, eyes half-shut as she bends to lick and kiss at his nipples. "Oh—God—"

"I wondered if you were sensitive here," she murmurs, lips against his hot skin. A quick nudge with her knee confirms it: he's fully hard now, and his fingers are making their way up to her hair, tangling in the dark strands.

"'M sensitive _everywhere_ —" He squirms a little, a whimper escaping his lips as she closes her mouth on his left nipple and sucks. " _Peggy_ —"

"D'you remember," she whispers, releasing him, "when I was nursing Sarah and had that plugged duct in my right breast?"

Steve gives her a shy little look from under his long eyelashes. "And I had to get in the shower with you and help you express, because you were so damn tired you could barely move."

"Mmm. Help me express. That's one word for it." Peggy laves at his chest again, her tongue slipping over his skin, rough and smooth alike. "Normally hands are used for expressing."

"You didn't seem to mind," he rasps, blushing down to his waist. "At the time, I mean. Besides, it—it cleared up—" Her teeth nip at a delicate patch of skin beneath his right pectoral, and he chokes on his words.

"Consider this revenge thirteen years in the making," she growls, raising her head.

"Hell of a distraction— _ah_ ," Steve pants as she rocks forward over his hips and nocks him into place, then very slowly slides herself down. "You trying to kill me?"

"Hardly." Peggy plants her hands on his chest. "Now hush. I've got work to do."

* * *

An hour later, they both lie naked and exhausted, melting into the Russian sable, soft and thick and black as sin. Peggy traces little circles into Steve's ribs. He's already half-asleep, and it seems a pity to wake him just to get him under the sheets, even if the room is a bit nippy on her sweat-cooling skin.

"I love you," she whispers, and in answer his drowsy face quirks into a little half-smile. "Always. No matter what comes for us; no matter where I am, I love you."

"Love you too," he mumbles, and turns on his side, throwing a heavy, solid arm around her waist. "Forever."

"Forever," she agrees.


	30. April 30, 1975

"The war's over!" yells Sarah, skidding into the kitchen in her argyle socks. " _Over!_ Saigon fell! I just heard it on TV!"

"Oh, have they made it official?" asks Peggy, turning around with a kettle. "Nothing to celebrate, I should say. Those poor people in Saigon who couldn't get out; what a shame that was."

"Ugh," Sarah says, sounding defeated as she slumps into the kitchen chair. "I never have any news in this family, do I?"

"Not about political or military matters, no," says Steve as he sips his coffee. "Sorry, honey."

"Anna's going to have a fit," says Sarah. "I'm going to call her right now. At least _she'll_ be surprised." She gives her parents a look and flounces out, her wavy dark hair bouncing in the confines of a bright orange headband.

Peggy watches her go to the living room in her matching orange corduroy trousers and green, orange, and rust colored shirt and sighs. "How long did you say it's going to take before we get some decent looking clothes back in fashion?"

Steve laughs. "Five more years. I promise. Then we get the eighties. Power suits, big hair—"

"I said _decent_ looking clothes," Peggy reprimands, pointing a spoon at him. "I want pastels, and I want _blue_ back, Steve Rogers."

"You'll get them," he promises. "Earth tones'll be gone. I swear."

She grins at him. "And they'll be gone for good, yes?"

"Until the nineties," Steve admits, and her face falls. "But after that everything's gray and white and very neutral," he hastens to add. "You can have all the light colors you want."

"As long as we don't have that awful shag rug anymore." She scowls at the offending orange-colored sprawl covering their living room and hallway: their new house in New Jersey is modern and awful and she's made no secret of her opinions on the interior décor.

"Oh, that'll never come back again," Steve assures her.

"Good. Have you heard from James yet?" Peggy asks as she sits down. "He ought to be coming home for summer holidays too. I know MIT certainly won't force him to stay."

"Not yet. He's supposed to call today." Steve sips at his coffee again. "Last time we talked, he said he was thinking about working for SHIELD after he gets his degree in the fall."

"Lord," says Peggy wearily. "That'll be fun, won't it? I hope he doesn't expect preferential treatment on account of my position."

"He's twenty-three, he's not an idiot." Steve takes a bite of his eggs. "I just don't know what Sarah wants to do with her life, and I'm starting to get worried. Miss Porter's School was great while it lasted, but now she's just…aimless."

"Well, she absolutely worships her cousin, so I think it's safe to say that whatever Anna does, Sarah will do." Peggy pours herself more milk. "Let us hope and pray that doesn't extend to dropping out of college and living at home at nearly thirty."

Steve sighs. "At least Michael has someone looking after him. I didn't like the sound of that cough at Christmas."

Peggy purses her lips. "He's got emphysema," she says, looking slightly harried. "He wrote me a letter and told me so. I told him a hundred times to stop smoking, but he didn't listen."

"What? I'm so sorry." Steve reaches across the table and squeezes her hand. "Has he said anything about how bad it is?"

"Severe, I'm afraid," she says, and sighs. "I suppose I rather resigned myself to outliving my brother again when I agreed to the serum, but that doesn't mean I like it." Tears shimmer in her eyes, and she shakes her head abruptly. "Death is a part of life, I suppose."

"It can't be that bad," says Steve, shocked.

"Not if it was just emphysema. But the doctor found a mass on his left lung, too; it appears he has cancer." Peggy wipes her eyes. "He's already written his own obituary and decided where he wants to be buried. We Brits are rather straightforward about all that, you see." She squeezes his hand back and offers a tremulous smile. "And...well. I suppose I've already grieved him once. Having him back was like a gift I never expected to have, and, well. I am grateful I got so many more years."

"If I can do anything to help, let me know," Steve says, feeling the pang of loss, though he's sure it's nothing close to how Peggy feels. Michael's been like a second brother, after Bucky, and he's going to feel the loss of him keenly.

"I will," Peggy says lightly, and kisses his fingers. "Now, however, I must dash to work. Do make sure Sarah doesn't stay on the phone all day long."

* * *

"Dad?"

"Hmm?" Steve sets the paper down: there's a photograph of the last helicopter to leave Saigon splashed across page two in full color. Sarah's standing in the doorway, looking uncomfortable. "You need something, kiddo?"

She fidgets and draws closer. "You always said we should use our gifts for good, right?"

"Right," he says cautiously, not knowing where this is going, and takes off his reading glasses.

She looks uncomfortable. "So, um. Anna was saying that there's a couple people who used to be in the local chapter of the, um, Black Panthers, and that they need help regrouping, and—someone to help protect them if the cops try to stop them—"

"Sarah," says Steve, already feeling exhausted. "You're nineteen."

"But I can _help_ —"

He sets the paper down. "Honey, the FBI is monitoring the Panthers and doing their damnedest to shut the whole operation down. Everyone local—all the leaders, I mean—they went back to Oakland. The last thing you wanna get involved in is something like this. Think for a minute. The cops arrest you—"

"They won't be able to arrest me," Sarah insists. "I can fight 'em—"

"You're not impervious to bullets," says Steve firmly. "You've never been shot, honey. You don't know what it's like out on the street—"

"Because you and Mom never let me do anything or go anywhere!" Sarah says angrily. "You think I'm a _baby—"_

"I know you're not a baby, which is why I'm talking to you like I am. Listen to me." Steve gestures at the couch, and she reluctantly sits. "You don't have any formal training. I know Anna thinks you're a superhero, but she doesn't understand your limits and neither do you—yet."

"So how do I find out my limits?" Sarah asks, eyes narrowed.

He sighs. "You really want to fight for good, huh?"

"I want to do _something_ ," she says. "James went to college and I'm just bumming around making flyers and signs with Anna, and—I _like_ that, but—"

"But you want to do more," Steve prompts, and she nods. "Okay. Here's what we'll do. I'll have your mom take you in to work with her and run some tests. We'll see what you can do, and once we know that, we'll decide where to go from there."

"And…I guess I'll tell Anna no to the Black Panthers thing," she mutters. "I'd like to work with Mom, though. Maybe be a junior agent."

"Yes, I think you had better," says Steve, putting his reading glasses back on and giving her a look over the rims. _Black Panthers_ , now that was an interesting thought. He wonders if SHIELD has any files on Wakanda yet. Azzuri would be King now.

Perhaps he ought to wait a while. 

* * *

" _You're letting her do what?"_ asks James incredulously over the phone.

"Hold your horses," says Steve, adjusting his grip on the receiver. "She wants to use her gifts to make a difference and neither I nor your mother has a problem with that."

" _So you're gonna let my kid sister be a field agent?"_

"Jamie," says Steve tiredly, "she's our daughter as well as your sister, you know."

" _Yeah, I know,"_ mutters James. " _Just wish she'd go to college first."_

"College isn't for everyone," Steve reminds him. "You're at MIT on Howard Stark's dime because he wanted to do your mom a favor. You're very lucky your number never came up for the draft."

" _I know that_ ," says James, sounding irritated. " _Look, Dad, I gotta go. There's a kid banging on the booth whining about how he misses his girlfriend."_

Steve has to smile. "All right. See you in a week. Do your vegetables, eat your homework. Wait, that's not right."

James laughs in spite of himself. " _See you soon, Dad. Bye."_

The phone clicks, and the line goes dead. Steve looks at the receiver, wistfully thinking about text messages and email, and sets it down in the cradle.

* * *

Peggy sits down at her desk, adjusts the framed pictures on it, and sets to work opening up her multiple files of paperwork for the day. With the war in Vietnam ending, she's got loads of things to sign off on: ending all of SHIELD's involvement in Operation Frequent Wind, for starters. At least _her_ agents stationed in Saigon had managed to smuggle out a few Vietnamese employees, which is more than she can say for the government at large.

Howard knocks on the door, and she looks up. "Come in." Age has added a bit more grey to his moustache and hair, increasing seemingly by the day: fatherhood is stressful and he doesn't have the advantage of being a super-soldier. His young son, Anthony, is already shaping up to be just as much of a cracking genius as his father: he's already built a circuit board and he's about to turn five. The Jarvises and his mother adore him and spoil him to death. Howard sits down.

"You remember that thing we were doing with the Air Force and NASA?"

"Wh—oh, that joint venture you wanted to create to study the Tesseract?" Peggy looks up from her paperwork. "What of it? Have they agreed to the terms?"

"They have," he says, grinning. "Which means I'll be heading out to Nevada soon."

She sighs. "Pity we haven't invented clones. You're splitting time between DC and New Jersey and New York already; now you'll be in the middle of the Southwest to boot." Peggy tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Don't you have something for me to sign off on, then?"

"I do," he says, brandishing a memo marked with about a hundred "classified" stamps. She signs quickly, giving the document a cursory glance. "Flight leaves in an hour. I get to oversee moving the Tesseract and making sure everyone involved is on the same page. Nightmare. Thank God for subordinates."

"Have fun," she teases.

"Oh, and if you could drop in to see Maria and Tony, I'd appreciate it." Howard steps back. "I know she'd like to see you, and Tony never shuts up about how he's going to show Aunt Peggy his circuit boards when she comes over again. I think he likes you more than he likes me."

Peggy chews on the inside of her mouth: privately, she's of the opinion that relationships with one's children benefit most when the parent is _present_ and _involved,_ but she knows better than to start in on Howard. Jarvis is a stellar father figure, at any rate. "I shall do my best to drop in on young Anthony," she promises. _Tony_ , really, as if the boy was a Mafioso.

"Thanks. See you when I see you." Howard's already rushing out the door.

Her newest assistant pokes her blond, flatironed head into the doorway as he leaves. "Director, there's a call for you. It's your husband."

"Put him through," Peggy orders, and picks up her line. "I hope this is an emergency, Steve."

" _It is. Sarah—Sarah wants to be trained with SHIELD as a junior agent."_

Peggy blinks. "I—I'm sorry, I thought I just heard you say our _nineteen year old daughter_ wants to attend basic training at the camp her _mother_ is heading up—"

" _Were you sitting down? Sorry."_ Steve sounds amused.

"You can't be serious." Peggy grips the edge of her desk.

" _You did say you didn't want her following completely in her cousin's footsteps. We talked, and she understands it'll be tough, but she wants to know what her limitations are, you know. Get a handle on what she can and can't do, then see where we go from there."_

"Crikey," says Peggy weakly. "I—I'll—I suppose I can fit her in: we have several graduates from West Point and a few young people who've been referred being bused up next week; I just cleared the last of the recommendation letters and background checks. I suppose I'd be accused of nepotism if I brought her in out of the blue, so I'll have to run a background check on her today—oh, and I'll have to have Barnes write a letter of recommendation: he can get that done in a jiffy."

" _Can you run a background check on James, too? Just in case,"_ says Steve, sounding thoughtful. " _Not that he said he wanted to join SHIELD, specifically, but he sounded a little jealous when I told him about Sarah."_

She sighs. "Yes, I suppose so. I might as well. Anything else?"

" _Nothing else to report, ma'am."_ She can hear the smile in his voice. " _See you tonight for dinner."_

"Yes, sir, Captain Rogers," she says primly, and hangs up.

* * *

"You mean it?" squeals Sarah in delight that night over meatloaf and roasted potatoes. "The background check cleared and everything?"

"I do, and it did," says Peggy, exchanging a look with Steve. "You'll report at 0700 at Camp Lehigh next Sunday morning. Mind you, I don't want my name being thrown around at the training instructors."

"They won't know who I am, right?" Sarah shovels potatoes into her mouth.

"If you start throwing punches they'll figure it out quick," says Steve. "So keep your head on and don't blow a lid, but don't hold back, either."

"Doesn't James get in that Saturday?" asks Sarah. "Boy, won't he be surprised."

"That's one word for it," mutters Steve. "I pick him up at the bus stop at ten in the morning."

"I won't tell Anna," says Sarah definitively. "She'd call me a traitor or something. Can I call Uncle Bucky?"

"He wrote your recommendation letter, so be my guest," Peggy tells her, smiling. "And don't mind too much about what Anna thinks or says. She's your cousin, not God."

Sarah grins, but the expression fades. "Anna said she was really worried about Uncle Michael."

Steve sets down his fork and gives Peggy a look. "Was she?" he asks.

"He's just had that awful cough for so long." Sarah's brows draw together.

"Darling—" Peggy bites her lip. "Uncle Michael isn't doing very well at all."

Sarah's big blue eyes, so like her father's, meet hers. "He's dying, isn't he?" she asks quietly. "I've suspected for a while. That cough of his isn't getting better."

"I—I'm afraid he is," says Peggy, putting her fork down. "Don't tell James: your father and I should break the news."

"What's Anna going to do?" Sarah looks stricken. "She doesn't make enough money to live on her own."

"She could look into working for SHIELD, I suppose," says Peggy dubiously. "Michael _does_ have a will, and she's the primary beneficiary of all of his things; I insisted on him drawing one up a year ago. That's some comfort."

"Would you even hire her? She's a revolutionary. Kind of." Sarah looks down at her plate. "I mean, she _wants_ to be one."

"I'll speak to her," promises Peggy. "And I really should make sure she's all right. I am her only relation, after all."

"Besides her mom," says Sarah, "and we don't even know if she's alive."

Peggy nods. "Correct. Well. We ought to ring Michael and say hello while we still can."

* * *

"I did want to speak to you about something," says Peggy that evening as she and Steve are getting ready for bed. "Sarah's background check cleared just fine, but something—well, something came up on James' and I'm…not sure if I ought to be worried about it or not."

"What do you mean?" Steve looks at her quizzically, climbing into bed as she divests herself of her robe and hangs it up neatly.

"I mean—we were under the impression that his number was never called by the draft, and I never thought to look into it—I suppose because if someone had made a mistake I couldn't have borne the thought of my son going off and getting himself killed." Peggy crosses her arms over her chest.

"Yeah?" Steve frowns.

"I—well, it appears his number was called after all, in 1970, when he was eighteen and not yet in college."

"What?" Steve rolls over to look at her. "You mean he burned his card or something? He evaded it?"

"Not—not illegally," says Peggy, wringing her hands. "I don't think, anyway. Erm. He—apparently, I mean, I suppose he couldn't have made up a health condition: just _look_ at him, he's healthy as a horse. No, he, ah, he—" She presses her lips together. "He told the physician at his medical screening that he was a homosexual."

"He—" Steve can't exactly find the words. "Oh. Huh. I—I guess that would do it, huh?"

"Well, is he?"

"Is he what?"

"Is he a homosexual?" Peggy paces, looking pale. "I mean—not that I would give a damn: he's my _son_ ; you might feel differently. I only want to know if it was an illegal evasion or not: if he truly is homosexual then it was an honest evasion and if he's _not_ then it was illegal, and—"

"Peggy," says Steve gently. "I think you're overthinking this."

"You—" She blinks at him. "You're not in the least chuffed that your own son might be—"

"Not in the slightest," he assures her. "As long as he's happy and safe, I don't care. Come to think of it, he's never had a girlfriend around, has he?"

"No," admits Peggy, sinking onto the bed. "But Sarah's never had a boyfriend about either. I'm just—I hope I haven't put too much emphasis on career over love."

"You did tell Sarah to go to the DC job fair instead of senior prom," Steve reminds her.

"That," Peggy says in a stiff voice, red-cheeked, "is because senior prom is a patently ridiculous custom, and her time would have been better served—"

Steve laughs outright. "Come to bed, hon. I'll talk to James when I pick him up Saturday."

* * *

The May morning is already warming on the steering wheel as Steve pulls up to the Greyhound bus station and catches sight of his son, waving at him on the curb with his suitcase.

"Hop on in!" he calls, rolling down the window with one hand, reaching across to the passenger side. "Throw your stuff in the back."

"Nice to see you too," James teases, sliding into the seat and rolling the window back up, inch by inch. "Gee, it's nice here. New York is like being in an oven. Couldn't even walk outside the connecting station."

"It's all the concrete," Steve explains, pulling out onto the highway. He steals a look at James: he's a good-looking kid with his mother's dark eyes and browny-blond hair that he's let grow long over his ears, and at twenty-three he's finally grown into his body, all six-foot-two of it. Thank heaven he hasn't attempted to grow those awful fuzzy mustaches that seem to be in vogue now for youths. "Works like an incubator. How's MIT?"

"Great," says James enthusiastically. "I'm taking an advanced course in chemistry over the summer, and—I guess I ought to tell you now, but, uh, I joined the Union of Concerned Scientists."

"Did you?" Steve asks.

"Yeah. I just—I know Mr. Stark is paying for me to attend, and I know he's big on military contracting, but—there's just—the world's got a lot more problems than nuclear missile guidance systems. I mean, look at that." James points out the window, indicating the trash littering the ditches along the road. "That can't be good for the environment. You know how the Cuyahoga River lit on fire back in sixty-nine?"

"Sure do," says Steve.

"Well, imagine if all the rivers were so polluted that nobody could drink clean water. I think people's safety is more important than finding new ways to kill them."

"I'll be damned," says Steve, giving his son a look. "You've gone and become a man with your own opinions."

James turns red and stares down at the floor. "I just want to help people, is all. Protect 'em, if I can."

"That's a good worldview," says Steve, grinning. "I'm proud. This is because I let you read _Lord of the Rings,_ isn't it? All the stuff about the green Shire and industrialization being a bad—"

"Well, Tolkien wasn't wrong, was he?" James asks. "If something's destroyed, it can take a long time for it to come back to the way it was."

"He was right about that," mutters Steve. "Anyway, your sister's being shipped off to basic training at Camp Lehigh in the morning. Her background checks all cleared, and I had your mother run one on you just in case you decided you wanted to give it a go." He gives his son a sideways look, and James goes a little pale.

"Oh. Did you?" he asks, trying to be casual.

"Yup. Uh, and we found out about your draft evading."

James goes pale, then scarlet, and hunches down in the seat. "Shit," he says, and shoots his dad a horrified glance. "I mean, shoot. I mean—"

"It's all right," says Steve. "We're not angry, just curious. Your mom just wanted to know if it was a legal or an illegal evasion."

"It…" James has never looked more miserable in his life than he does now. "It, uh. Both. I think."

Steve considers that. It's definitely not the answer he'd expected to hear, as he'd been ready for one end or the other, not a middle ground. "Oh…kay. How's it both?"

"Uh," says James, and runs a hand through his hair. "It's. It's just. It just is."

"You know," Steve begins, "I've seen a lot more of the human sexuality spectrum than you might think."

" _Dad_ ," groans James, still red-faced.

"What? I have. So whatever you want to tell me, tell me. Is it bothering you?"

"It…it isn't bothering me as much as, uh, I think—I think there's something wrong with me," James says quickly, the words spilling out. "Because, uh, I _do_ like mostly girls, I think they're pretty and I, uh, you know—but, um, but I like… some of the guys I've met at college, too."

"In the same way that you like girls?" prompts Steve.

"Yeah," James admits, head in his hands. "So that's, um. That's why it's both. 'Cause I'm not—I'm not a total friend of Dorothy, if you know what I—"

Steve chuckles. "Son, I went to art school in the thirties. I know what that means."

"You're not—you don't think I'm crazy?"

"Absolutely not," says Steve, turning off the highway. "You know, in ancient Rome it was totally acceptable for a man to love both men and women, as long as he governed himself well and didn't go overboard. Perspectives change over time."

"I didn't know that," says James. "So you're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?" Steve shoots him a smile.

"I don't know. Having a queer son's embarrassing, but having a half-queer son's kinda weird, especially when you used to be Captain America."

"You're not half anything," says Steve firmly. "You're all you. And if you were a friend of Dorothy, I'd still love you no matter what."

"Sarah, too?" asks James.

"Yes, Sarah too," Steve says, laughing. "Just don't say anything in front of your uncle Michael. He's a bit stuck in the old days."

"Don't you ever think it's weird that, you know… Uncle Michael and Anna are gonna get old before us?" James looks pensive.

"I'm already old," Steve quips. "But I know what you mean." He sighs. "About that. Uh. Michael's got lung cancer, James. And emphysema."

"I kinda figured, from Christmas," says James quietly. "Does Sarah know?"

"Yeah.

"Can you…can you tell all this to Mom for me?" James fidgets in his seat. "I don't know how I'd say it."

Steve nods. "I can and I will, but I promise you if you want to talk to her she won't be confused or upset either, if that's what you're worried about."

James finally gives him a real smile. "Thanks, Dad."

* * *

It's week three of basic training and Sarah's never had so much fun in all her life. She'd never noticed how much she'd had to unconsciously learn to repress in order to not scare other people or hurt them on accident, but here, in the mud and on the rope ladders and lifting logs, she can exert as much force as she wants. Here, she's actually going to bed tired at night.

Sure, the sergeants had given her a weird look on her first completed two mile run (completed in ten minutes, and she'd been purposely slowing herself down a bit so as to not draw _too_ much attention)—and sure, the other two women in her group acted like she was contagious, but the looks on the guys' faces as she outdoes them in almost every category is worth it.

"Rogers!" barks one of the instructors, marching toward her bunk. She jerks to her feet and stands at perfect attention. This particular drill sergeant, Dunwoody, has been known to make nasty comments about all three of the women in the class: it's his opinion that women don't belong in a single part of the armed forces except for the WAC, and even though everyone knows they're here to train for SHIELD, he keeps the pretense up of this being basic training for the Army. Sometimes Sarah wonders if he even knows he's training future SHIELD agents, or if they're keeping him in the dark on purpose.

"Sir, yes, sir!" she shouts back.

"You came in _first_ in the two mile run last week, is that right?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

He looks down his nose at her like she's something on his shoe. "You're running it again. Now."

Sarah blinks, and then she realizes: Dunwoody thinks she's cheated on the run, _and_ they've all just finished eating. He wants her to humiliate herself by throwing up _and_ by not being able to make the run again in ten minutes. Little does he know she's probably already digested all her food. "Sir, should I try for a better time, sir?"

Dunwoody gets right up in her face, veins bulging as he launches into screaming, but she's learned by now to tamp down the natural reaction to cry or panic, especially since she's in front of every single person in her class. " _Did I say I wanted you to beat your record, Rogers?"_

"Sir, no, sir!"

"Get out there and run the goddamn course!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" She makes for the door instantly, Dunwoody hot on her heels and yelling about how he wants the whole class to watch her, since there's no way some girl could possibly run fast enough to beat the time of every single man in the class.

By the time she makes it to the track, she's furious. _Channel it,_ she thinks, pausing on the starting line and waiting for Dunwoody to yank out his stopwatch.

" _Go!"_ he shouts, and she takes off as fast as she can for the first time. Her muscles are stretching and bunching, air is flying in her face, and it doesn't even matter that she's in her full uniform and not her PT gear or that part of her hair has come loose from its tight bun: Sarah feels like she's flying. _Yes!_ she thinks, elated as she clears a hurdle and keeps pounding away on the track. _This is what I was born to do!_

The track is one mile, and she whizzes past the starting line again so fast that Dunwoody's apoplectic face is a blur of green and white, her classmates a collage of shock in white and brown and black. _You want me to run the goddamn course? I'll run the goddamn course._ First turn, then the second: she's streaking down the back stretch, then the third turn, the fourth: she's in the home stretch, she's crossing—

She's over the line. There's no cheering, only the stunned faces of her peers as they look at each other in shock. Dunwoody's face purples in rage as he stares at the stopwatch, but he doesn't stop it. He looks up at her, and down again at the face of the watch, seemingly at a loss for the first time in his life.

"Seven minutes, that's a three and a half minute _mile_ —" mumbles one of the guys, an African-American with wide-set dark eyes, and Dunwoody whirls on him, eager for another punching bag.

"Oh, you can do _mathematics, Private Fury?_ You didn't tell me we had fuckin' _George Washington Carver_ in the class! God damn, if I'd known we had a bonafide genius among us I would have laid out the _red fucking carpet_!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"Don't you _yes sir_ me! Drop and give me fifty!"

The young man drops to his palms instantly, and Sarah stands there awkwardly, not sure what to do as Dunwoody paces, watching Fury strain to finish his last ten push-ups. The hot summer sun and the fact that everyone's stomachs are full of lunch don't make a good combination, and Fury falters, arms shaking on pushup number fifty, then vomits copiously into the dirt, eliciting a disgusted murmur from the other classmates and a snort of derision from Dunwoody.

"Get up!" he barks, and Fury struggles to his feet, looking ashy under his dark skin. Dunwoody slams his thumb onto the button and looks down smugly. "Would you look at that. Fifteen minutes for a two mile run, Rogers. I knew you couldn't have done it in ten."

The sheer unfairness of it all makes Sarah want to punch him in his stupid face, but of course she can't: Mom will be furious. "Sir, yes, sir," she says calmly, not even panting.

Most of the other trainees look at each other in confusion, but Fury speaks up again, standing at attention. "Sir, with all due respect, your timer might be off."

Dunwoody whirls on the young man. "Did I just hear you _contradict_ me, you—"

"Sir, he's right, sir," says another trainee, Anderson. "Rogers completed that run in six minutes. I saw it on your timer as she crossed the line, sir."

Dunwoody glares at Anderson. "You and Fury can team up and run two miles. Now." He turns about. "Any of the rest of you pieces of shit want to inform me on what you think you saw?"

"Sir, no, sir," chant the rest of them.

"Good. Get your asses back to the bunkhouse and wait for someone to come and tell you what to do."

Sarah steps past Fury and Anderson. "You didn't have to do that," she mutters under her breath.

"I know two plus two ain't five," Fury replies. "Damned if I don't quit this and join the CIA instead."

"And I'm not blind," says Anderson, with a little more heat.

" _Anderson! Fury! Get going!"_

Sarah follows her classmates back. It's going to be a long rest of the month, but at least she has a couple of people on her side, and that's something to look forward to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nOTES!  
> -I am so, so , sooooo sick. Like, if this doesn't clear up in another few days I'm going to the hospital, sick. I can't think and my chest is all full of gunk, help, why did I accept a job being around human petri dishes, these notes will suck  
> -The history of draft dodging is amazing, totally worth a read  
> -HI FURY


	31. February 14, 1979

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been almost a month IM SORRY but I promise you this is absolutely not over and I will not be abandoning it unfinished. Next week I start full time as a teacher (!!??!?) and I likely will be updating no more frequently than once a month from here on out, depending on what I can get done. For your troubles please have this 13k word monstrosity I am calling a chapter. Thank you.

Agent Sarah Rogers adjusts the framed photographs on her new desk at the Playground: the last picture the family took with Uncle Michael has a place of honor right in the center, and she can see his warm gray eyes smiling at her out of the picture. _Miss you_ , she thinks, touching the glass. Anna's in the picture, hovering over her father, as pretty and blond as always. _Thank heavens Mom got her a job up at Camp Lehigh._ She'd been so upset when her father had died—as anyone would be, really, but they'd been so worried—and Mom had swept in immediately with a new apartment and an opening as a secretary like some kind of all-powerful spirit.

"Agent Rogers?"

She turns around and sees Uncle Bucky—no, at work he's Agent Barnes—heading for her. "Morning, Agent Barnes," she says. "

"Morning. Director Carter's got a job for you. Let's get to the hangar."

"The hangar?" Sarah slides out of her seat, excitement rising, and follows him to the elevator. _I'm going on a real mission! Finally!_

"Don't get too fired up," Bucky warns her. "Your brother's coming, too."

Sarah fights a groan. "He's _always_ on my tail. I thought him turning down that job offer at the EPA to work for SHIELD was bad enough, but—"

Bucky shoots her a look. "He's trying to watch your six. Your mom ain't gonna be there forever, Sarah."

"I don't need anybody to watch my six," she grumbles, but follows him anyway.

* * *

"The Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan, as you are all aware," says Mom, spreading a sheaf of paper across her lap. Anna's sitting in the corner, strapped into a jumpseat with a memo pad, ready to take notes, and along the walls, strapped into their own seats, are Sarah, Dr. Pym, James, and Agent Romanoff. "Now. We've got a situation involving extremely classified material. Since the two of you are Level Five, I'm promoting you immediately to Level Six, and therefore allowing you to go on the mission." She hands her children a pair of folders. "Congratulations."

James opens his folder. Inside is a memo stating his promotion and a new badge, but nothing else. "So… what's the situation exactly?" he asks.

Peggy sighs. "The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, has been kidnapped and is being held hostage in the Kabul Serena Hotel. The kidnappers are making no demands on the American government. The US has advised that we do not move on the situation so as not to endanger the life of the ambassador while negotiations are attempted, but we received a tip that the Afghan police may attempt to attack the hotel under Soviet command. Our mission will be to stop them and extract the ambassador with minimal loss of life." She points to a black-and-white photo of the ambassador, paper-clipped to her file. "This is Dubs, so you can ID him on sight."

"Who are the kidnappers?" asks Sarah.

"Hydra," says Agent Romanoff, not even bothering to look up as she adjusts the tactical belt around her waist.

James shifts in his seat. "You mean… the Nazi science division from World War Two? I thought that whole thing went under after the war."

"That's why you had to be given higher clearance," explains Pym. "They're still around. Weakened, but around, and we believe that they've aligned themselves with the pro-Soviet Khalq faction."

"Sorry— _why_ is Dr. Pym here?" asks Sarah, indicating the man and giving her mother a confused look.

"Not to give you a history lesson, that's for sure," says Hank, unperturbed. "Director, should I change?"

"Yes, I think you had better." Peggy turns back to her son and daughter as Pym makes his way back to the cargo hold of the plane. "Hank is a field agent as well as a scientist, Sarah. He possesses particle technology that allows him to change his size and retain—well, you'll see it soon enough."

"Wait, you're sending us into the field with—" James swivels and looks at Natasha Romanoff, and she winks, making him go slightly pale. "But we haven't trained for this."

"You're not going to be fighting with Hank," Natasha says. "You'll be with me."

"Who's going to be fighting with Hank?" Sarah asks.

"Me," says Peggy, and stands, crossing over to a panel and pressing a lever. A section of aluminum slides to the side and reveals a suit of red, white, and blue canvas and cordura nylon: tactical gear, muted colors from twenty years of use, gloves, boots.

"Holy _shit_ ," says James, too thrilled to say anything else.

"Language, Jamie," says Peggy sternly.

"Does Dad know?" Sarah demands, gaping. She's not just the director, she's freaking _Captain America?_ How had they missed _this_?

"Of course he does. I took over from him, didn't I? Now go to the back of the plane and get changed. Your tac gear is waiting for you."

"Did _you_ know?" Sarah asks Anna on her way back.

Anna just grins. "And you thought I was just a _secretary_."

Sarah scowls. "Traitor."

* * *

Sarah cinches the tactical belt around her waist and observes herself in the polished piece of metal bolted to the interior wall of the plane that serves as a mirror. Her hair's been tied back, her face obscured by a green-and-black shemagh tied around her neck that she'll be able to pull over her nose in a pinch, and her uniform is a dark green thing made out of some sort of thick cordura cotton. There's a jacket that zips up, a pair of pants, and tactical boots that remind her of her time at Camp Lehigh. On her right breast, there's a cream-colored patch sewn on: white on white, a classical shield shape with a star inside.

"You'll want to tighten that belt," says a low voice to her left. She turns and sees Natasha, leaning against the wall with a small smile on her lips. "If it's too loose or hanging around your hips, your mobility will take a hit. The last thing you want to do in combat is have a defective uniform."

"Right," Sarah says, and adjusts the belt accordingly. The buckle has the same shape incised into it as her patch; that shield with the star inside. "What's the symbol mean?"

Nat shrugs. "You don't want to announce to everyone you're working for the Americans, and you _definitely_ don't want to announce to the world that you're working for an agency that 'doesn't exist'," she says, fingers making the quotations in the air, "so we each get an identifiable symbol and a call sign instead of names and a SHIELD patch."

"What's yours?" Sarah looks her over. "Is it that hourglass? Isn't that 7th Infantry Division?"

The other woman chuckles. "Seventh Infantry is a black hourglass in a red circle. I'm a red hourglass. Close, though. Call sign's Black Widow."

"When did SHIELD start letting you go on field assignments?" Sarah checks her pistol and slides it into her holster. "Or—sorry, that was probably a rude—"

"It wasn't," says Natasha. "I've been going in for about a year. Nothing too big or noticeable. I'm not exactly trained to be able to smash down walls. I do stealth operations, your mother does the heavy lifting with Pym, and Barnes holds down the home front."

"Must be weird for Uncle Bucky," says Sarah. "Being on the desk side of things." She recalls the information about her favorite uncle she'd learned once she'd gotten to Level Five, and shifts uncomfortably. "Now he's in charge of a Russian, instead of a Russian being in charge of him."

Natasha nods. "He'd rather be out in the field with me, but the arm…" she trails off. "Anyway. Your call sign was submitted by Director Carter, and it's been approved. Welcome to the team, Crusader."

"Crusader?" Sarah groans. "That's what the doctor told my mom when I was born, because I wouldn't stop screaming in the nursery. I had to hear that story every single birthday. God."

"It's better than Pym's," Nat says confidentially. "He's Ant-Man."

" _Ant-Man_?" Sarah fights a giggle. "You're kidding."

"You'll find out why when we get on the ground."

James comes up behind her and raps on the curve of the door. "Is this on right?" he asks, looking disgruntled. His tactical gear is so dark blue it's almost black, with red piping along the seams and spreading out from his chest in five lines, suggesting the idea of a starburst. A pair of cream-colored patches, shaped like stars, rests on both shoulders. He doesn't have a shemagh like Sarah, but he's holding a helmet reminiscent of the photographs Sarah's seen of her father, back in the war, only this one's darker blue, and it's been updated with Kevlar straps instead of canvas—and it doesn't have an A on it.

"Looks good." Nat pats him on the shoulder. "Got your weapons?"

"Sarah's got her batons and sidearms. I've got a knife and my two handguns, and enough ammo for us both." James looks uncomfortable. "You're sure I won't have to actually kill anyone?"

"I'm not sure of anything," replies Natasha. "A mission's a mission. You may not have to kill anyone; you may have to."

"Great," mutters James under his breath as she moves off to report to their mother.

"What? You had as much training as I did." Sarah checks her batons (modified from police gear with a titanium core) and, satisfied, tucks them into their side-holsters. "Don't be a scaredy-cat."

"This isn't beating up bullies on the playground, Sarah," he says seriously. "This is serious."

"I know it's serious. That's why I have guns." She pats her sidearms. "We'll be fine. We'll be with Natasha. She's not gonna let anything happen to us."

"Do you think Dad knows we're flying over here?" James frowns.

She sighs. "I think Dad knows more than you think he does. I mean, come on. You didn’t even find out he used to be Captain America until four years ago, and I know he didn't want us to feel like we _had_ to live up to a legacy, but I feel like—I don't know. Like this is what we're meant to do. You know?"

"I don't know," he tells her, looking unsure. "I wanted to protect people, not kill them."

"We _are!_ We're protecting the ambassador. Honestly, James."

"But—" He huffs slightly. "But if we save him by killing ten people, is that worth it?"

"If the ten people are Soviets, or Hydra, yes," says Sarah firmly.

"You know the Soviets helped us fight Hitler, right?"

"Yeah, and now they're having their own Vietnam War in Afghanistan. Things change. Innocent people are gonna die, James. We have to do _something_." Sarah rolls her eyes. "Sometimes I don't know which of us Anna rubbed off on more, me or you."

"I only took this job to make sure you didn't get killed," he says, catching her elbow as she walks past him. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I don't need a lecture," Sarah hisses. "I'm twenty-four, I'm not fourteen anymore."

"Yeah, but this is your first real mission, and it's my fifth." His dark eyes are pleading. "Just be _careful_."

"All right," she says, and yanks her elbow out of his hand.

"We're ready to make the jump," Natasha calls up to the pilot. "You kids have your parachutes?" She hands them both small handheld radios. "These have a range of a hundred yards. Stay near the hotel."

"Shit," mutters Sarah, and belts hers on with numb fingers. It'll be just like in training, right? Right?

"How many training jumps have you done?" calls James over the sound of the wind as the back hatch opens and the red light goes on.

"Four!" she shouts back, and their mother strides past them in her canvas and cordura suit, strapping her own chute on before she turns to face them at the door, wind blowing her tied-back tail of hair about wildly.

"Stay with Romanoff!" she yells. "Hank?"

"Director?" Dr. Pym jogs up in a truly silly-looking red and silver costume, sort of like a full leather motorcycle suit, and Sarah watches as he raises his hands: there are two different-colored buttons on his index fingers. What on earth are those for?

"To me, and stay close, or Janet will be absolutely furious with me." Peggy pats her shoulder, and Pym—he _disappears,_ or something: perhaps he's shrunk? Sarah squints, and to her astonishment makes out Hank's tiny silver form on her mother's shoulder, waving at her. "Count to ten and jump after we have. Romanoff, you know what to do."

"Yes, ma'am," says Nat, flipping her a quick salute. Peggy nods back, and with a tired grace that suggests she's done this a hundred times, falls backward out of the plane, disappearing.

"That's what she meant by reducing size," says Sarah, lining up in front of Natasha who's moved to stand behind James. The ground outside looks very far away, and her stomach drops. "I can do it. I can do it," she mutters harshly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"You got this," James says, clapping her on the back.

"And _go_!" shouts Natasha from behind.

Sarah takes a deep breath and steps out into the sky.

* * *

They land in a heap of silk just outside Kabul by a large abandoned building and stuff the parachutes away into the underbrush as Natasha gets her bearings and motions for them to follow her. "Stay close," she orders. "Follow my lead." The streets are mostly empty, but the newest buildings have a distinct utilitarian look to them that makes Sarah think a bit of George Orwell.

Sarah falls into step on James' three o'clock. "What's _your_ call sign?" she asks as they make their way into a back alley and start hurrying along behind Natasha.

"It's stupid," he tells her as they round a corner to the main street. He pauses as Natasha continues. "Wait. Someone'll see us—"

"That's the idea," says Nat crisply, and heads right into the driver's seat of a waiting car before poking her head out. "Come on. You thought we were going to _walk_ to the Kabul Serena?"

"How's the car—who left the—" Sarah's bewildered, but climbs in anyway, followed by her brother.

"My contact in Kabul thinks I'm still Soviet," says Nat as she starts the car and begins to drive down the road. "So, car. Put your seatbelts on, both of you."

James rolls his eyes. "Everyone knows seatbelts aren't necess—"

Nat slams the brake. James slides off the seat and winds up folded, knees to his chest, between the seat and the back of the driver's seat. "Seat. Belt. On. Now."

"Fine, jeez," mutters James, scrambling to get back on the seat and buckle himself in.

Sarah smirks as Natasha hits the gas again. "How far to the hotel?"

Nat pulls into traffic on Ebn-e-Sina Road. "Ten minutes. Time for the approach talk. Your m—"

"We should use our code names," Sarah interrupts. "We don't know if they bugged the car."

"Mmm. Good catch." Nat's green eyes flash in the rear view mirror. "Union Jane and Ant-Man are en route to the hotel. They'll enter from the back, near Asmayi Road, and we'll go in from the side. They'll take out any resistance, find the room the ambassador's in, and we'll follow their lead. We may have to go in through the windows if he's being guarded inside, and we can expect plenty of angry troops to deal with."

"Union Jane," says James, snorting. "Why can't she just be 'Cap'?"

"Because D— _Steve Rogers_ was Cap," Sarah informs him. "And anyway she's British, not American."

" _Anyway_ ," says Nat, braking for a man pushing a cart, "Crusader, you'll stay on my six. Same goes for you, Patriot."

" _Patriot?_ " hisses Sarah, fighting a smile.

"It's not like I picked it," James grumbles, wrinkling his nose at her.

* * *

One minute later, and Natasha has charmed her way past the Afghan police and down the side street where they evacuate the car and hurry onto the grounds of the hotel.

Well, _charmed_ is one word for it. Sarah still can't speak Russian as well as James can, but Natasha had barked at the policeman in Russian and flashed a Soviet badge until he'd let her pass with wide eyes.

"Stay close," she tells them as they dart from palm tree to palm tree in the courtyard. Her radio crackles, and she picks it up quickly. "Widow here, repeat?"

Peggy's voice comes through. " _Widow, this is Union Jane. We're past the perimeter and inside the building, north side. Where are you?"_

Natasha backs up against a low wall. "Courtyard. Where's the target?"

" _Room 117. Find the outer wall and wait on my signal._ "

"Okay, kids," says Natasha, tucking her radio away. "Let's go."

Sarah follows her. "How do we find the room when the numbers aren't—"

"Look," says James, and points at the outer wall. There's a window with the curtains drawn across it. "It's gotta be that one. Why would you have the curtain pulled in broad daylight?"

"Good instincts." Natasha gets low and moves to the wall near the window, then pulls out a small—well, it looks like a suction cup with a wire attached, or maybe a high-tech stethoscope, and she presses the suction cup to the wall, listening intently.

"Stark tech," whispers James, back to the wall. "You hear anything?"

"Yup," says Nat, removing the cup and tucking everything away. "He's in here." She picks up her radio again. "Union Jane, I'm in position. Ready when you are."

" _Use flashbangs. I don't want fatalities. Ten seconds. Over and out."_

Nat drops the radio in the flowerbed and turns toward the window. "You two stay low. Good luck," she says, and waits for a heartbeat, then sticks some kind of nodule to the window, moving back a couple steps. The nodule connects to a small controller in her hands, and she looks at Sarah and James. "Cover your ears."

They obey. She thumbs the button, and the window shatters into pieces, a high-pitched sonic whine fragmenting the glass. Natasha pulls two small devices off her belt and throws them in, waiting for the bright flashes of light to disorient the occupants before she takes a flying leap into the room, James and Sarah following suit.

Sarah looks up as she hits the floor and automatically takes in the scene: her mother is bursting through the door and Henry Pym is seemingly flickering in and out of existence: men in Afghan police uniforms and men in black tactical gear are dropping like flies and Natasha just slid under someone's legs—

"Get to Dubs!" shouts Pym before shrinking down again, and Sarah rolls over, frantically crawling toward the man in a rumpled suit tied to a chair against the wall and blindfolded, shaking in terror with every gunshot ringing through the room.

"Mr. Ambassador!" she shouts, grabbing his knee and hauling herself up to untie his hands.

"American?" he shouts back.

"Stay down! We're here to help!" She fumbles with the cord at his wrists: where the hell had she put the knife? "Patriot! I need a knife!"

James drops and starts army-crawling towards her, knife in his hand, and just as she leans forward to take it a bullet buries itself in the wall behind her head with a punchy little thunk. She looks over and sees a man—he's not Afghan, or a policeman; he's… _Soviet_ , or something. More importantly, he's got a gun aimed at her head from the other side of the bed.

She panics. The sudden, uncontrollable urge to duck behind the Ambassador and use him as a human shield forces her down and behind the chair. James launches himself to his feet and flips the mattress with one hand, knocking the man over and into the other wall in a tangle of bedding. "Untie the Ambassador!" he barks, and Sarah gets to her knees again, cutting through the ties that bind his wrists until he's free, and after that she drags the man to the ground and yanks the blindfold off. Guilt wracks her for dropping so fast to protect herself behind her own target: what kind of coward is she? _He didn't see. He didn't see._

"Crusader, get him outside!" Natasha is still grappling with two men in a corner, and there's distant shouting from outside in the hall: the Afghan police are storming the building. "Extract him!"

Mom looks up. "Ant-Man, with me!" They rush out the door, and the hall lights up in bursts of gunfire.

Sarah hustles Dubs to the window, intending to get him back to the car, and stops short: there are ten men outside, surrounding the broken window, and every single one of them have Russian-made automatic rifles and handguns pointed right at her.

She has just enough time to think, _I botched it, I really botched this one up, Mom's going to kill me_ , before the nearest one pulls the trigger, and—well, she gets shot.

Funny thing about being shot: you don't actually die immediately like in John Wayne movies. It feels like a hammer has just punched into your arm, or your leg, or your chest—wherever you've been shot, and  sometimes it might take a moment for your body to catch up and say, _oh, hello, we've been shot!_ before you feel any pain at all. So Sarah Rogers, who has time to think all of these things in the time it takes her to register being shot, looks down numbly at her dangling arm and thinks, _I'd better cover the Ambassador_ , before turning around and seeing the man on the carpet, bleeding from a wound to the shoulder. "Shit," she says, very calmly, and falls to her knees as the pain starts bleeding through her nerves.

Someone rushes past her and opens fire—or at least _someone's_ opening fire, and all she can do is lie on top of the Ambassador and pray her body is enough to block any more bullets. "That's my fucking _sister_!" screams a voice she knows, and she looks up to see James, _James,_ who didn't want to shoot anybody, who just wanted to help: _James_ rips a man's throat open with his knife and shoots another, moving with the fluidity of a dancer as he dodges and ducks and takes down every man in the courtyard outside. He uses his whole body as a weapon, in addition to the sidearms and the knife; a macabre ballet of death and destruction.

Sarah looks back into the room, still lying on Dub's prone form, and sees Natasha struggling in a chokehold with a Soviet officer in black—or maybe he isn't Soviet, she can see a red star on his uniform but there's another symbol she can't quite make out from here. "Little Natalia," he sneers, jamming her against the wall. At least the gunfire has stopped, but Mom and Dr. Pym have moved out into the hallway to handle the police and another man is marching towards her. _No!_ she wants to scream, but he drags her up by the hair and yanks the shemagh off her neck.

"I'm not Natalia anymore," Nat forces out, bracing herself against the wall.

"You always will be," says the man holding Sarah by the hair. She takes in a breath, trying to pull herself together: _you're stronger than him! Do something!_ "Did you really think your past would fade into the night? Do your young friends here know who you really are?"

Nat's eyes glide over to Sarah, and she looks—she looks _scared_ , and that scares Sarah. "Leave her alone," she says.

"Crusader," muses the officer restraining Sarah. "Is that what they're calling you? A fitting name for Captain America's scion, I think."

"I don't know—what you're talking about," gasps Sarah. She can't move her dangling left arm, but she can get to her baton: the right one is still in its sheath.

"No?" He laughs. "Perhaps we've gotten false information. Natalia, would you like to confirm?"

Natasha? _Natasha_ had told them? Sarah's fingers curl around her baton.

Nat swallows. "I—was mistaken," she says softly, eyes fixed on Sarah's face. "The man in the courtyard. He's the child. You saw him lift that mattress like it was nothing. The woman is just a junior agent. Let her go."

"You're growing complacent, Widow," snaps the officer with his arm locked over her throat. "Get that man and—"

Sarah lifts the baton with all her strength and smashes it into the skull of the officer holding her by the hair. He drops like a sack of rice, and the other man shouts, turning with Natasha still locked to his chest by an arm. "So you _are_ the child," he says, his back to the window as Sarah stands up shakily. "Impressive. Did Natalia tell you what she did to your father in nineteen fifty-one?"

Nineteen fifty one? Sarah's memory streams back: a conversation around the dinner table, _they looked much worse in 1951,_ the image of the scars on her father's back indelibly burned into her brain. "No," she whispers, more of a protest than an answer.

"Oh, yes," he says. Natasha's fingers carefully make it down to her waist, pulling out one of those sonic nodules: Sarah sees it and looks up at her face. _Play,_ she mouths.

"I don't believe you," Sarah says, and out of the corner of her eye she sees James, coming back: he stops at the window and draws his sidearm. "She wouldn't."

The man laughs. "You have no idea what she's capable of."

"My father would never have let her come near us if she'd hurt him." Nat's thumbs are slipping toward the button. "You're a liar."

"Your father is a fool who trusts far too easily, and—"

Nat's thumb slams the button, and a high-pitched sonic shriek, pitched to break glass and too sharp for human ears to handle, fills the room. Sarah drops and covers her right ear with her working right hand, but shouts in agony as her left eardrum remains unprotected. The man screams and covers his bleeding ears, dropping Natasha, who rolls as she hits the ground, draws her sidearm, comes to rest on one knee facing the man, and—

The man's head explodes into red mist, and his lifeless body slumps to the ground, toppling like a tree. The strange symbol on his jacket pops off and rolls toward Nat's left boot, coming to rest face-up like a spun coin: it's a red…anemone of some kind, inside a skull, spattered with blood.

Sarah looks up blindly toward the window, and there's James, covered in other people's blood and still aiming his handgun at where the man's head had been. He's so still that smoke is still wafting out of the muzzle.

Someone touches Sarah's left shoulder, and she jumps, startled, but it's only Natasha, her fingers touching Sarah's ear and coming away bloody. "You ruptured your eardrum," she says, looking pained. "Sorry about that."

"The—the ambassador—" Sarah clambers back toward the body of Dubs, hoping against hope that _something_ came out of this after all, that she didn't mess everything up.

He's still, but he opens his eyes when she kneels by his chest, pressing the wound on his shoulder. "Ambassador," she says, her voice sounding oddly unmodulated in only her right ear. "My name's Crusader. We're gonna get you out. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No," he wheezes. "Well—well done."

James is still standing in the middle of the room, staring at the body of the man he's just shot point-blank in the head, and after a moment he yanks his helmet off and throws up on the carpet, just missing Natasha's boots. "Sorry," he rasps.

"Jamie—" Sarah looks up, her hands shaking so badly she can hardly keep pressure on Dub's wound, even with one hand. "You have to—you have to call her back in, radio her, extract—extract the Ambassador, there's gonna be more of them—" Why is she so cold? Her teeth are chattering like crazy.

He hands something off his belt to Natasha. "Good thinking, leaving it out there so it wouldn't get destroyed," he says, voice sounding very distant.

"You two stay with the Ambassador. I'll be right back." Natasha hurries out the door, and James stumbles over to Sarah, kneeling down and applying pressure to Dubs' chest. He must say something, but Sarah can barely hear him.

"What?"

He turns his head and enunciates. "You're in shock. You have to sit back."

"I'm not the one wh-who threw up." No sooner has she said it than nausea starts roiling in her gut, and she stumbles to the broken window and gets sick in the flowerbed. Outside, the bodies of at least fifteen policemen and Soviet officers litter the grass, and she forces herself to look at them. Most are awash in blood, but a few look like their necks have just been snapped. _Jamie did that. My brother. My brother._

"You've been shot," James reminds her from behind.

"You killed them," she manages, pulling her head back in.

"They shot you." He's pale, but determined, pulling a pad of absorbent gauze from his pocket. "Press that on your arm and keep it there."

Sarah's just gotten the gauze in place and is gritting her teeth against the pain when her mother, Dr. Pym, and Natasha walk back in: all of them are streaked with blood and seemingly unfazed. Peggy's eyes go straight to her. "Hank, have you contacted the embassy?"

"Yes. ETA about two minutes." Pym takes off his helmet and crouches by Sarah, feeling at her arm. "I can shrink down and take a look, if you'd like."

"Please don't," Sarah manages.

He nods. "Right. Nerve endings. Not a good idea. Can you stand up?"

Mom's got that look on her face that suggests she's extremely emotional and tamping it down. _Compartmentalization_ , that's what it's called. "I want her evacuated back to HQ immediately. The Playground, if possible: the medical facilities are much better. Get Dubs to Walter Reed."

"Yes, ma'am." Pym helps Sarah to her feet, where she wobbles: the loss of balance is new. Has her inner ear been damaged? James helps the Ambassador sit up and get into the chair, and the last thing Sarah can recall is looking at Natasha's concerned and wary face before everything blurs into light and color.

* * *

"Morning, kid," says Uncle Bucky, sitting at the foot of her bed. "You sleep okay?"

Sarah wiggles her shoulder a little. Her left arm's still in a sling, but healing quickly, and her eardrum has already repaired itself in the almost two days it's been since she made it back to the States. "Yeah. Any news on the Ambassador?" She's been asking since she could sit up and nobody had seemed to know a thing.

Bucky presses his mouth into a thin line. "I'm really sorry, Sarah. Dubs went into surgery last night to try to work on the shattered bone up by his shoulder. An artery ruptured and he died on the table."

She sits there, tears in her eyes. "But—but we extracted him. He was at the best hospital in the country—"

"I know. I'm sorry." He puts his hand on her knee. "Nat's outside, if you feel up to saying hi."

Sarah wipes her eyes. "Is Jamie okay?"

"He's…well. Not really." Bucky leans back. "He's been in the gym here for two days. Won't sleep. Your mom's going nuts, but he won't talk to her. I think she called your dad an hour ago to see if he had time to drive down here and talk to him."

"It's my fault," Sarah whispers, eyes squeezed shut as guilt racks her. "I—I ducked behind the Ambassador because someone was gonna shoot me and—and James intervened and _then_ I was stupid and didn't check before heading out the window, and got myself shot, and James killed all those people. It's my fault."

"It is not your fault," Bucky tells her gently, inching forward and pressing his hand to her cheek. "Hey. Eyes up here, kiddo."

She meets his eyes, lip trembling. "It's my fault the Ambassador's _dead_ —"

"No, it ain't. Cut that out." Bucky gives her a little pat on the cheek. "I'm gonna tell you something important, okay?"

"Okay." Sarah wipes her eyes again.

Bucky's blue eyes are steady. "When shit goes down, people look for someone to blame. And sometimes we blame ourselves, because we like to think we're in control of bad shit happening. Except sometimes shit just _happens,_ Sarah. And you didn't make it happen. It just did."

"But if I'd just _checked_ —" Sarah's voice cracks.

"Saying what if this and what if that won't make things change. There's no good to be gained outta that. You just drive yourself crazy with what ifs. What if I'd had my old arm and went with you? What if I'd stopped Nat from being roughed up by those Hydra assholes? You see?" Bucky tucks her hair behind her ear. "It'll take some time. But you gotta move past it, honey."

Sarah wipes her nose with the back of her hand and tries her hardest to hide the crack in her voice. "I want to talk to Nat, if she's out there."

"Okay. I'll tell her." Bucky kisses her forehead and stands up, his empty sleeve pinned up to his shoulder, and Sarah doesn't have time to get a breath before Natasha's inside, standing at the door and giving her a wary, guarded look.

The woman doesn't look good. She has dark circles under her eyes and her coppery hair hangs in greasy strands: her nose is red and her lips are pale as if she's been crying. "Sarah," she says carefully, as if the name in her mouth is a bomb that might go off.

"Bucky told me Dubs died," says Sarah, looking away and at the blank wall. "So the mission was a failure."

"It was not a failure," says Natasha with some more force, and moves closer. "We got valuable information and your mother—I don't think I'm supposed to tell you this, but you mother and Pym retrieved an item from the Soviets that Hydra had somehow stolen from SHIELD, had sold to the Russians, and were stashing in Kabul. It was far from a failure. You—" Her face twists a little. "You should talk to your father."

"Dad?" Sarah's shaken out of her self-pity for a moment. "What would Dad know about any of this?"

"More than you might think," Natasha mutters with a sidelong glance. She sits at the foot of the bed, where Bucky had been moments ago, and clasps her hands, rubbing her thumbs together. Her right one creeps down around her left wrist, rubbing at the faint silver scar there. "Your father… has he ever said anything strange?"

"Strange like…how?" Sarah's interest is stoked.

"I don't know," confesses Nat. "When he first met me, your father… he already knew me. He knew my name. He let me live when he could have killed me, and he probably should have, but he didn't. He won't tell me how he knows me."

"But what does that have to do with the mission we just went on?"

Natasha's eyes flicker up, green and bright. "Who do you think gave us the tip that the police were going to storm the hotel?"

"Wh— _Dad?_ " Sarah sits up straighter. "You can't be serious."

"I am." Nat's hands twist over each other again. "Not only that. He knew Dubs had been captured before we did. He told your mother we had a short window of opportunity and gave us the right times for everything, down to the hour, _before_ they happened. And he said—" Nat takes a small breath. "He said the Ambassador might die."

_"What?"_

"I know. It makes no sense. All I can think is… I don't know. Perhaps the serum he was given…it had other qualities? Can he see across distances?" Nat shakes her head. "Fenhoff had the ability to influence minds. Maybe there's something else at play. I don't know, and he's not telling."

Sarah can't really breathe. Something's squeezed her lungs tightly, and her heart begins to pound. _Dad? Dad has extrasensory powers?_ That can't be true—but then, wait. There had been instances, small things: she remembers when they all went to see _Star Wars_ two years ago and how afterward, they'd come out of the theater and he'd said… what had he said?

 _I bet you they'll make another one._ And they _were_ , according to the magazines she'd been picking up…but that could have been a coincidence, couldn’t it?

"He does. Say strange things sometimes, I mean." Another memory comes back, this one from a long time ago, back in the house in Arlington: Sarah's six, and her parents are talking in low voices behind the bedroom door, something about how _are you sure that's supposed to happen_? "Mostly to my mother, I think. She might know. But I—I don't know anything more than that."

Nat fidgets. "I just don't understand why he wouldn't want to come and work with us. It makes no sense. And he's not aging at the rate he should, not like your mother is—I'm sorry. I'm thinking out loud. I shouldn't bother you."

"No, it's all right." Sarah looks away. "I should… I think I need to sit down and talk to my dad."

* * *

Steve drops his overnight bag at the door of the gym and walks straight in, eyes fixed on his son, who's wearing sweat-stained PT gear and going to town on the punching bag. He hesitates, watching, as the fists fly and the muscles in this back bunch and flex: James is so obviously _his_ son, despite the brown eyes and the temper he got from his mother, and sometimes it almost feels like looking into a mirror. _Where did the time go?_   It seemed just yesterday he'd been a shrieking toddler wreaking havoc on the house, and here he stands: twenty-seven years old, in his prime, and hurting as only a grown man can hurt.

"James," Steve says softly, his voice ringing through the room.

James stops his flurry of movement and turns to face his father. His face is haggard and exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and pale lips. It's likely he hasn't slept in days. "Hey, Dad," he rasps.

"Hi, son," says Steve, advancing.

"Don't—" James drags a hand over his face. "Don't try to cheer me up. Just don't."

"I'm not here for that." Steve rolls his sleeves up. At _supposedly_ sixty, but chronologically a hundred and sixty-five or thereabouts, he looks like a well-kept man of maybe fifty, but still _feels_ like he’s in his late thirties. He's still aging more visibly and more rapidly than his fifty-eight year old wife who still looks thirty-five, but he guesses for him, at least, age is about experience and not years you're alive. He told James that, once; that some people live to be ninety and never mature past twelve, but that some eighteen-year-olds have more maturity than some octogenarians. Steve rolls his sleeves up. "I'm here because I thought you might want a partner."

"A partner," James echoes, sounding dead inside.

Steve shrugs as he toes off his shoes. "Yeah. You've been beating the hell out of that bag. Let's go a round or two. Come on."

James nods, as if he doesn't care, and Steve steps onto the mat with his son. James throws a punch, and Steve dodges it. "Faster, c'mon," he goads, and James tries again. Steve blocks it easily and tosses him to the mat. "I may be old, but I'm not dead. Let's go, kid."

James gets back to his feet, a spark of something in his eyes: whatever emotion it is, it's better than dead-eyed listlessness. Steve hits him with a left hook, and James snaps back, split lip bleeding. He spits on the mat. "Jesus Christ, Dad—"

"Language," says Steve, dodging another punch. "Come on. Are you a SHIELD agent or a kid?"

 _That_ pisses James off. "I'm an _agent_ —" He lunges, but Steve ducks, turns on his knee, lifts James over his head and lands him flat on his back.

"Then act like one," he says.

"I _can't_ act like one," James spits, tears in his eyes as he gets back to his feet. "I got my sister shot and the ambassador killed—"

In one fluid movement, Steve pins his son's arms behind his back and drives him to his knees, and no matter how James struggles, he can't shake his dad's grip. "Break out of it," Steve orders, arms tightening. "Break out of it now."

"I—" James is red with exertion, squirming and struggling, and tears start to roll down his face as he realizes he's well and truly trapped. He simply doesn't have the strength. "I—can't. I can't, Dad. I _can't_."

"You can't." Steve releases him, and James falls forward onto his hands, sobbing like a child. "Sometimes no matter how hard you try to do something, you _can't_ do it, James. You couldn't have stopped Dubs from dying or Sarah from being shot if you had tried."

"I sh-shot all those _people_ ," James cries, wiping his eyes with his hand. "I didn't want to kill anyone and I killed sixteen people, I shot that guy in the _head_ —"

"That man would have killed Natasha and your sister if you hadn't done something." Steve crouches down and squeezes his son's shoulder, struck by the contrast: when had his _hands_ slowly begun to age? "James. Listen to me. You saved their lives. But you can't save everyone."

James covers his face with his hands as his shoulders shake, and Steve wraps him in his arms, hugging him tightly. "I just keep seeing—his _head_ exploding—it was like I didn't even care, like I was someone else, I don't know what happened to me—"

"Your brain just has to take some time to get used to what happened," Steve says gently. "There's nothing wrong with you. It'll get better with time."

"Have you—have you ever killed anyone?" James asks, tear-stained face rising up to meet his father's eyes.

"I have," Steve confesses. "A lot of people, back in the war, and after—after the war," he amends. "And so has your mother. Certain circumstances called for certain measures. I would have never killed anyone I didn't have to. You look at a man in front of you and understand that he's going to kill _you_ or someone you care about if you don't kill him, and self-preservation takes over. You don't kill men for the sake of killing. Killing someone who's gonna kill or hurt you or your partner is protection. That's the line between murder and self-defense."

James wipes his eyes with the heels of his hands, and suddenly looks up, toward the doors to the hall.

Sarah's standing there, arm in a sling, barefoot and still in a hospital gown and robe, with Natasha standing behind her. "Jamie?" she ventures, in a very small, fragile voice that Steve hasn't heard since she was twelve.

James stands up on wobbly feet and crosses over to his sister, eyes still red from tears. "Hey, Sarah-bear," he says, voice shaking, and pulls his sister into a hug. She clings to his back, squeezes her eyes shut, and begins to cry.

* * *

"I want to talk to you."

The words are as flat and tired as an old soda. Steve looks up at his daughter, standing in the doorway of the overnight quarters he's been assigned while he stays at the Playground. At least they've updated the rooms since the fifties. Sarah's wearing cropped pants that must have come out of Natasha's closet and a rust-and-white plaid shirt that's a couple sizes too big for her: he knows it belongs to Bucky because Peggy bought it for him for Christmas three years ago. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her eyes as tired and old as her voice sounds; far too old and tired for a twenty-four year old woman.

"Sure thing. What about?" Steve asks, standing up and letting her take the chair at the small table while he sits on the bed.

He expects her to break down sobbing about her first mission: maybe about Dubs losing his life in spite of everything, maybe about some inner struggle. Maybe some part of him wishes she'd tell him she doesn't want to be a SHIELD agent anymore. After all, the thought of his children in danger, even though they're both adults, is still nerve-wracking.

Sarah doesn't do any of those things. She swallows, and looks at him with those piercing blue eyes, and says, "I want to know how you knew about Dubs."

It feels like a rock has dropped into Steve's gut, ice-cold and slow as a glacier and filling him with a sense of dread. "Who told you?" he manages.

"Nat," she tells him. "She thinks you have some kind of psychic powers."

Steve stifles a grin in spite of himself. "Yeah? What do you think?"

"I don't know," Sarah mumbles. "How could you have known that Dubs was even kidnapped in the first place? Why would you—you don't even work for SHIELD."

"No, I don't," Steve agrees. He scrubs his face with his hand, and lets out a sigh. "I guess… I was going to have to tell you at some point. Both of you. I just…" He smiles sadly, looking away from his daughter for a minute. "I guess I thought if I just kept my head down and ignored the world this time around, I'd be happy. Problem is, I was wrong."

Sarah blinks. "What do you mean, this time around?"

"It's…it's complicated." Steve shakes his head. "Believe me, your mom and I have gone over whether or not to tell you two about a hundred times, but… I don't know. It's just not the right time."

"You're not making any sense."

"I know. I'm sorry, honey." Steve finds himself unexpectedly overcome with emotion. Sarah's just come out of her first mission: she's still not recovered from her injury and it's not _fair_ to her or James to carry something like this for the next thirty years. "Do you remember when you were five or six and you asked me what sex was because you saw the word on the cover of that book that your mom's friend Angie sent her as a joke?"

Sarah blushes to her ears. "Oh, god. _Dad_. What—"

"Okay, you do. Good. You remember what I told you?"

"You…" She kicks her feet uncomfortably. "You took me to the garage and handed me that hundred-and-fifty pound barbell and told me to lift it. I couldn't. I was a strong kid, but my limit was about a hundred pounds. And you said… you said that the time would come one day when I _could_ lift it, but until then, you'd lift it, because you were strong enough to, and asked me if I understood. And I did. I mean, I do now, more than I did when I was six."

Steve smiles. "Right. Some things… some things I have to carry for you, still, even though you're a grown woman now."

She chews on her lip. "How… how much can I know?"

"Just know this." Steve turns to her and takes her right hand between his. "I love you, and your mother, and your brother. I love your uncle Bucky, and Anna, and Nat, and anything I say or tell any of you, I tell you because I love you."

"You know things that are gonna happen," Sarah says quietly, looking into his eyes. "Don't you?"

"To some extent," he confesses. "But it's not because of the serum. So if you're hoping that passed down to you so you can put a turban on your head and bill yourself as Madame Lola the fortune-teller in some fusty old shop in Queens, you're outta luck, kid."

Sarah smiles, and Steve realizes it's the first time he's seen her smile since the mission. It fades as quickly as it came. "No I was… I was kind of hoping you'd tell me whether or not I could have done anything to save the ambassador."

"You couldn't have," he tells her with absolute certainty. "Some things, I think, are meant to happen no matter what. Now, that doesn't mean you don't have a choice in how to act or what to do in your life. It just means that you _can_ change some things, but not others. I don't know if that'll make you feel better or not."

Sarah considers for a moment, looking down at her hands. "I think it does," she says quietly. "Knowing I did all I could. I guess… I guess next time I'll just have to do my best and accept the outcome."

Steve squeezes her hand in his. "Atta girl. Let's go up to the cafeteria and get some coffee."

* * *

Bucky Barnes unlocks the door to his old apartment in Arlington. He's glad he still pays the rent for it, because the commute he's found himself taking more and more often between the New York office and the Playground is long enough that he needs a place to stay in both cities. _My whole life's just a big montage of apartments and offices_ , he thinks grimly.

Well, and Natasha.

He'll be waiting for her today, because she still has a report to fill out at work about the Dubs mission that went tits-up. There had been just enough time to meet her at the plane and hurriedly check her over before she'd swatted him away with blood-stained hands and turned all her attention to Sarah, who'd been barely conscious and in shock, dragged in by medevac personnel and bleeding badly from her left arm.

He'd almost felt guilty for going to Nat first: he should have been focused on his best friend's _daughter_ , not his girlfriend, but he hadn't had time to mope about it because Nat had started barking orders like she was the boss, and he'd complied with everything. It didn't matter that he technically outranked her. He just wanted to help.

 _As if I could actually help_ , he thinks bitterly, opening the fridge. Bucky's kept himself in great physical condition for a sixty-two-year-old man, just on the off-chance that SHIELD _might_ need him fighting fit again, and what had they done? Sent Steve's _kids_ into the field and left him, a seasoned veteran, sitting at a desk. _That'll be my life forevermore. Old man, sitting at a desk, playing gin rummy with Steve on Saturday nights._ He has a sudden mental image of himself with gray hair and glasses, using a cane, and shudders.

Even worse, Natasha might move on. She hasn't seemed to age a bit, although she must be in her fifties or sixties: nobody has any real idea what her date of birth is, and she certainly can't recall. _What's going to happen when she gives up on me?_ He's not an idiot: there's nothing an older man can offer her that a handsome young one can't, and while Bucky doesn't strictly consider himself vain, the short patches of silver at his temples are a telltale, ever-present sign of age, even if he could pass for about fifty. They can't have a family, either, and while that's not something Bucky ever thought he'd wanted, and not something that could be fixed by either of them, he can't _not_ see Natasha's protectiveness of Sarah and James—and Anna, even though Anna's thirty-four. _If you married me, you'd be their aunt,_ he'd teased at one point, and she'd shot back, _I already am their aunt_.

They really should get married, though. Bucky can't imagine how long they both have to live, probably quite a while, but in case something happens to him, he'd like Nat to at least have the legal ability to take over his affairs. Of course, he's not likely to meet an untimely end sitting at his desk, but anything's possible.

Bucky realizes he's been staring at a bottle of red wine in the fridge for five minutes and letting all the cool air out. He sighs, takes the bottle out, and puts it on the counter, then roots around for ingredients to make dinner. Cooking has become a sort of second therapy for him: a challenge: _can I cut this tomato with one hand?_ It's fun, and difficult enough to keep him occupied while being easy enough to not discourage or frustrate him, so he's thoroughly engrossed in making white sauce for the noodles he's just finished draining and doesn't hear Natasha walk in.

"Hey," she says, startling him and making him bump his head on the range hood.

"Jeez. Hi." Bucky rubs his head. "Hope you're hungry. Fettucine alfredo."

Nat sits on the sofa and takes off her shoes, rubbing her feet. "Yes, thanks," she says, sounding distracted.

"You okay? I know the mission was rough." Bucky takes the pan of sauce off the stovetop and sets it on a pad, then ladles sauce over two plates of noodles.

"It's… it's not really the mission," she says, eyes darting up to find his.

"Well, come get some food and talk to me about it, then," Bucky says, picking up one of the plates and setting it on the table. "Here. Eat up."

Nat gets up and slides into her seat, picking up her fork and twirling it through the noodles. "I've never asked you," she begins, almost hesitant, "about how Steve knew me when he met me first. You were there."

"I remember," Bucky says, a chill going down his spine. "Nineteen fifty."

"He looked like he couldn't believe it was me," she murmurs, twirling her fork back and forth. "And later he said he knew me." Nat looks over at Bucky as he sits with his own plate in his hand. "There's… something I haven't told you," she begins. "In fifty-one, when I was assigned to extract him and accompany him to Cuba, he… became disoriented. Started talking about people I didn't know."

"What, like Howard? You probably didn't know them at the time."

"No. Someone called Tony, for one, and he mentioned you and Peggy, but he said—I don't know. It was strange. Believe me, I've been trying to decipher this for years." Natasha's face tightens slightly.

Bucky's interest is stoked, despite his trepidation. "What did he say?"

"He said… he seemed to think I remembered his wife's _funeral_." Nat shakes her head. "He told me he had dreamed they were going to grow old together, and said he couldn't leave you behind. When he asked what year it was, I told him I thought it was 1950, and he said, 'I have a lot further to go' as if he was tired."

Bucky swallows. The fettucine is growing cold. He can't lie to Natasha, not after so long, but he tries anyway. "I don't know anyone named Tony."

"But we do," says Nat, looking up. "That's the thing. Howard's little boy."

"Anthony?"

"His father calls him Tony."

Bucky shrugs uncomfortably under her cool, steady green gaze. "He's eight. He wasn't born until 1970. How could Steve have been talking about Howard's son in 1951?"

"I don't know," says Nat. "But I think you do."

He drops his fork. "Am I being interrogated, Miss Rushman?" It's an attempt at humor that falls flat.

She narrows her eyes. "I want to know who he thinks—or thought—I was."

Bucky looks away. "You'd have to ask him. I don't think I could explain it if I tried."

"So you _do_ know," she whispers victoriously. "You know and you didn't _tell_ me—"

He shakes his head quickly. "I don't know jack about why he never wanted you killed. I speculated, but I don't know for sure."

Nat's undeterred. "You know _something_."

"Yeah, I know something. I don't know what I can tell you." Bucky sinks back in his seat.

"I'm not stupid," Nat snaps, putting her fork down. "He can see the future, or something. I know it sounds insane, but it has to be true."

"That—no, that ain't it," says Bucky, a vivid picture in his mind of Steve done up like a fortune-teller. He has to fight a laugh, and Natasha, who thinks he's laughing at her, turns red and stands up.

"I'm not hungry. I'm going to bed. _You_ can sleep on the couch," she snaps, whirling off toward their bedroom.

"It's time travel!" Bucky barks, and freezes as she stops in place, turning and fixing him with an incredulous stare. Goose bumps break out on his arms: what has he _done?_ He knows full well she's acting as a double agent right now: the Soviets think she's on _their_ team and they will as long as she keeps feeding them information. _Please, please don’t tell them this._ "Now you see why I couldn't tell you."

"There's no such thing as time travel," Nat says blankly. "You're pulling my leg."

"There is. Or, there will be in the future." Bucky waves a hand helplessly. "He's—you know, from the future. He came back to live out the life he couldn’t have before."

"Before _what?_ "

"He—" Bucky doesn't even know how to explain this. He stands up and grabs a sheet of paper and a magnet from the refrigerator with his hand, setting both on the table and putting the magnet on the bottom of the paper. In spite of her frustration, Nat draws closer. "Okay," he says. "The magnet is Steve. The paper is time."

"Seems a little simplistic, but all right," says Nat dryly.

He rolls his eyes and moves the magnet up the paper. "This is Steve going through his life. Then _here_ ," and Bucky drops the magnet near the top, grabs a pencil off the counter, and marks an X, "he jumped back." He folds the paper one-handed, catching the magnet up in his fingers and unfolding the paper, placing the magnet back near the bottom.

"You mean he already lived out his life and came back to do it again?" Nat's mystified.

"No, he didn't live out anything," Bucky explains. "He—you know in '44 when he crashed the Valkyrie into Greenland?"

"Yes. Peggy said he'd made his way home after a few years."

Bucky shakes his head. "He didn't. _That_ Steve is still in the ice, frozen. He's alive, but he won't make it out for another coupla decades. _Our_ Steve is that Steve, who came out around two thousand something, lived out about fifteen years past that, _then_ came back to forty-nine and started over to live out the life he never had."

Nat digests this for a moment. "Do the kids know?"

"No, and they don't need to. As far as they know, he was Captain America in the war and he retired before they were born. Not too many people know Steve is _the_ Steve Rogers anyway, 'cept for a couple folks at SHIELD. Generally, people still think Captain America went down with the ship. He's not exactly a public figure."

"So he's… _twice_ as old as we think he is," Nat mutters. "And Peggy knows?"

"Yeah, she does. He told her first. Howard, me—Phillips knew too, God rest his soul. And now you."

Nat sinks into her seat. "He must have… known me from the future," she manages, looking stricken. "How—how exactly does someone _time-travel?_ "

"He knew you were a good person," says Bucky heavily. "You and he were… or are going to be, I guess—close friends. And I don't quite understand the whole time-traveling procedure anyway: something about quantum physics, which I'm too much of a mook to understand."

She shakes her head sharply, a sob escaping her throat, and to Bucky's shock she's crying. "I'm not a good person," she says hoarsely. "He—I must lie to him, in the future, because I'm _not_ —"

"Yes, you are," says Bucky firmly, slipping off his seat and kneeling by her. "Yes, you _are_ , Nat. You're putting yourself at risk every day to do the right thing—"

"But that won't erase what I've _done_ ," she whispers, tears in her eyes. "It can't."

"No, it won't. We can't change our pasts, not even with time travel: Steve told me that." Bucky strokes her hair out of her face gently. "All we can do is go _forward_."

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and nods shakily. "I'm not having a good week," she mutters, eyes flickering up to his. It's one of their code phrases, and Bucky jumps at the chance.

"Then I'll take care of you," he says. "Eat your dinner."

One order, followed at a time: it's a comforting rhythm that lets both of them take turns slipping back into the old ways they simultaneously loathe and take refuge in. It's like turning off your brain for a while, just trusting the other person—unlike Hydra, it doesn't last forever and both of them know they can stop at any time. It had taken some time to get the wrinkles ironed out. The time Nat had lost control and begged him to use her trigger words and wipe her into a _good_ person still gives him the creeps to think about, but he'd be lying if he hadn't fantasized about what would happen if she used _his_ trigger words and forced him to—well. Neither of them had truly wanted to take that chance: the mind is a delicate thing, but he's feverishly gotten off more than once to playing at subordination, and so has she.

Natasha nods and starts eating her cold noodles as Bucky moves about the kitchen, cleaning up, eating his own food. When she's done, she stands and waits.

"Go get a shower," he says gently, and she nods, then moves off to the bathroom. Bucky watches her go and waits until the water's running before he heads to the bedroom and turns down the covers, shucking off his shirt and changing into a pair of pajama pants. His reflection in the mirror is the same as ever, with maybe some more padding around the chest and waist: dark hair trailing down into his pants, thick muscle in his arm, his smartly-cut hair showing patches of silver at the sides and top in spite of his mostly youthful face. He should grow it out. He might look younger with a longer style.

The water stops in the bathroom and he turns around. Nat walks in, naked with wet hair, and the contrast between her seemingly everlasting youth and his own aging body fills him with a crushing sense of inferiority even as his mouth goes dry and his cock twitches in his pants. "Ready to comply," she whispers, looking straight at him.

"Get on the bed," he says gently, and she does, climbing up and kneeling, looking right at him. "Lie down." She does, on her left side, facing him. "Good. Stay there." Bucky circles around to the other side of the bed and climbs on, his weight depressing the mattress as he awkwardly slots himself along her back on his left side, curling his right arm around her tightly. "Relax," he says softly, and Nat's body eases into limpness, her breathing synced with his. "Good," Bucky tells her, and strokes his hand down her body from throat to knee, careful sweeping movements, his warm fingers brushing her skin as if he's gentling an animal. "You're a good person, Nat. So good. You're patient with me even when I lose my temper with the busted sink, and you're kind, and you love Peggy and Steve's kids so much."

"I'm _not—"_ she protests, but he shakes his head, pressing his mouth to the back of her neck.

"You are. Shh. You put yourself at risk every damn day to do the right thing, to be good, but you don't have to _earn_ it, Nat. You're already good. But you're so scared of your _past,_ honey. You'd throw yourself off a cliff if you thought it would wipe all that out forever, wouldn't you?"

She doesn't move for a moment, making Bucky worry for a minute that he's pushed it too fast, but then she nods tightly. "Yes," she whispers into the dimness of the bedroom. "I would."

"You'll never have to," he promises. "Steve knows you're good. I know you're good. Peggy and Sarah and James all know you're good, and so do the agents who work with you every damn day."

"How do you—how do _you_ live with it?" she rasps hoarsely, as if she's crying. "With knowing what you've done?"

"You know you did things," Bucky murmurs. "You know _you_ weren’t really in control all the time, you didn't have your hands on the wheel. And you accept it. You accept that people do bad things, but that don't make 'em bad people. It's circumstances you gotta look at, honey. The world ain't black and white."

"No, not for us," she whispers.

"Not for anybody," Bucky says, his hand still stroking her skin as softly as he can. "I want you to say it, honey. _I'm a good person._ Say it for me."

Nat goes stiff for a moment. "I'm a good person," she repeats with some difficulty.

"You don't need to prove a damn thing to anybody."

Her body relaxes, going pliant and soft as she speaks. "I don't need to prove anything to anyone."

"I'm going to take care of you."

She turns her head and kisses his cheek. "You're going to take care of me," she whispers, utter trust in every movement, every line of her body.

He lets his hand pause on her lower abdomen, waiting to move between her thighs until she gives him the signal. Some nights she wants more than petting and sweet talk. This, however, isn't one of those nights, and after no signal Bucky moves his hand back up between her breasts, resting over her heart. "Till the very end," he says.

"Till the end," Nat whispers, and they fall asleep together.

* * *

Steve, who's been summoned to Peggy's office at Camp Lehigh by Anna as if he's a low-level agent, waits on a plastic chair outside her office and looks at his hands.

It's been two days since he had his sit-down talk with Sarah and his heart-to-heart with James, and he's never felt more unprepared to be a father, even though he knows his parenting days are mostly past. Maybe that's a normal way to feel, but he doesn't care for it. Sarah's staying at their home here in Jersey while she recovers, and James has voluntarily checked himself into Dr. Anderson's post-trauma program at the Playground, so for now their actions are out of his hands.

The door opens and Peggy is standing there, arms crossed. "Get in here," she orders, and he obeys immediately, head slightly down as he edges past her, through the interior door, and sits in one of the chairs in front of her desk as she shuts the door and draws the blinds across the window.

He remembers this office. He'd stood right there outside the blinds: thirty years ago, nine years ago, forty-four years in the future—it doesn't matter. This is where he'd decided he was coming back.

She's even wearing the same suit. Peggy has never been one for trends, preferring mostly to wear simple, tailored silhouettes with waistlines—and if she _must_ wear a pattern, it's normally pinstripes—but her shoulder-length, gently waving hair is half pulled back at the top, strands of silver working their way through the dark mass, and her navy suit is close-fitting and severe. "Why do I feel like I'm in the principal's office?" he asks as she crossed behind the desk and leans down, planting her hands on the wood.

She exhales tightly. "You _are_ aware, Steve, that Natasha Romanoff is walking a _very_ fine line as a double agent at the moment?"

"I am aware, yes."

"You understand that I allowed you to influence this mission _solely_ because I trusted you?"

Steve's gut sinks. "Y…yes."

"So how in the _hell_ ," says Peggy, who looks like she's ready to start steaming out of her ears, "did Natasha find out it was _you_ who tipped us off as to the kidnapping?"

He squares his jaw and sets his head. "I told her."

"You—" Peggy gapes. "Steve, you bloody _idiot,_ she's a Soviet double agent who likely is pretending to have ties with Hydra! She's going to have to explain how we were there so fast to _someone_. Killing the officers could be explained away as maintaining her cover, but—"

"She'll make something up," he says stubbornly.

"You don't know that!" Peggy paces back and forth. "For God's sake, Steve, I asked Janet van Dyne to stay behind so our _children_ could have a place on the team and now they've both been compromised because you trusted Natasha Romanoff—Hydra's probably got eyes on Sarah, one of them already _knew_ you had a child—"

"Nat isn't going to compromise any—"

" _This isn't the woman you knew!"_ Peggy barks, and Steve's stunned into stillness: she has rarely raised her voice before at him and her fists are clenched tightly. "You've put us all at risk. Natasha's on an information diet right now: she knows what she knows when we tell her, and we _do not_ tell her a bloody thing about _you_."

Steve feels as if a weight is pressing down his gut. "She only wanted—to know what was _real_ ; her false memories were driving her up the wall and I haven't told her anything about the time travel—"

"And how long do you think it's going to be before she weasels it out of Barnes?"

"Don't talk about her like that," Steve demands, jaw tight. "She's a _person_ —"

"I am aware she is a person. I like her very much, even if that’s hard for you to believe right now. I’m also aware she is a double agent who has to keep up her cover with minimal damage to _our_ side and maximum damage to the Soviets and Hydra, all while maintaining the illusion of being _on their side_ and giving them pertinent information." Peggy's so angry she's almost vibrating. "If she doesn't tell the Soviets about you, they'll find out elsewhere, and she'll be useless as a double agent because they will most likely suspect she's working for us and _they will kill her_."

"What do you want me to do?" asks Steve, staring at the edge of her desk as his gut sinks.

Peggy crosses back around and sits down at her desk. She silently signs a piece of paper and hands it to him, and he pulls his reading glasses out of his breast pocket to read it. It's a memorandum of relocation, authorized by Howard already, waiting for Steve's consenting signature, stating he's to be moved immediately to a safehouse in—

" _Boston_?" asks Steve incredulously.

"Yes. You will be living under round-the-clock surveillance for the next several years, specific length to be determined. You may have contact with Howard, with Anna, and with me. James will be moving in with you for a short period on Dr. Anderson's orders."

He looks up. "And Sarah?"

"She'll be staying with me."

Steve looks back down. "But…Boston. _Really_?"

His distaste is palpable. Peggy can't stop the hint of a smile from playing at her mouth. "You'll be expected to go to several Red Sox games to maintain your cover."

"Oh, _God_ ," he says, slumping back in his seat. "You did this on purpose."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says primly. "You'll be living on several acres in a very nice farmhouse out in the rural sprawl. I chose it for the location and ease of surveillance."

Steve looks down at the paper, the blank line waiting for his signature. "You—will you visit?"

"If I can," she says tightly, and he sees the sudden surge of emotion in her eyes that betrays her own thoughts: she doesn't want this any more than he does, but she has no choice.

They've never been apart for long since they've been married. Steve slips his reading glasses off and puts them on the desk. "I have two conditions," he says quietly. "Before I sign."

"And what are those?" Peggy looks up at him, wearing her best Director of SHIELD no-nonsense mask.

"First of all." He stands up and rolls his sleeves up, slowly, methodically: Peggy's eyes are glued to his arms and he sees her swallow slightly. "I'd like to have some quality time with my wife before I'm expected to leave her for an ungodly amount of time and relocate to the no-man's-land that is Boston."

"I—I'm sure I can arrange something," she says with as much composure as she can, her fingers curled around her pen. "What's the second condition?"

Steve lets a small smile twitch at the corner of his mouth, but fixes her with the most intense stare he can. "I'll tell you after the first one's taken care of."

The mask cracks. "You know, I absolutely loathe you sometimes," she whispers in a voice that says the exact opposite, leaning over the desk and finding his mouth with hers. One of her knees comes up, sliding across the desk and sending papers and pencils flying, a stapler—her skirt tears from knee to hip along a seam, unable to hold together against the muscle of her flexing thigh.

"I'm sorry," he moans against her mouth, hands finding the buttons down the front of her jacket as she grips his shirt. "I'm _sorry,_ you're right, I didn't think—"

"Stop _talking_ ," she begs, and shrugs out of her jacket, stretching forward to kiss him again. "Do you know how much I want to fling that bloody memo into the _incinerator—_ "

"I'm sorry," is all Steve can say, and she drags him over the top of the desk, knocking his reading glasses to the floor as they land on the floor. Her chair crashes to its side, the sound muffled by the carpet. "My glasses—"

"Bugger your glasses," says Peggy, yanking his pants down.

There's a knock on the door, and Steve sits up straight on instinct, only to be pushed back down behind the desk flat as Peggy stands, yanking her jacket back on. "What?" she calls out.

"Director?" It's a male voice, youthful and bright. "I thought I heard a crash. Are you okay?"

"Perfectly all right, thank you, Evans." _Evans_ , thinks Steve. It must be that intern, Agent Frank Evans' son: Peggy is kind of infamous for her insistence on letting any and every agent's teenage kid fresh out of high school intern at the Playground or at Camp Lehigh if they want to. Frank Jr. is about as bright as a box of coal, but he means well. "I just stood up too quickly and knocked my chair over. Nothing to worry about."

"Oh. Okay." Frank retreats, and no sooner is he gone, shutting the door behind him, than Steve's hands and creeping up Peggy's skirt.

"Get back down here."

"You don't give me orders," she shoots back, primly gathering her papers as his fingers find the front of her cotton briefs. "You—" Her words choke off as he presses down gently, and her knees wobble. She has to support herself on the desk, fists balled up. " _Steve—"_

He grins, rolling onto his knees and pressing his lips to the back of her thigh. "Get down here and give your poor old husband a kiss."

"A kiss, hmm?" Peggy twists around, looking down at him as he kneels at her feet. "And where exactly do you want this kiss? Not that I feel you deserve it, of course."

"Wherever you want," he answers, voice gone a little husky. His dick is so hard it's painful, stuck behind his zipper and down his left pant leg.

"Get up," she orders, and he obeys immediately. "Sit in that chair." There's a second, smaller desk to one side of her office, probably where the stenographer sits when they have something that needs to go on record. He sits behind it, and Peggy stands between his thighs, eyeing him up, then takes off her jacket again, laying it on the carpet to protect her knees as she gets on the floor under the desk.

"What—" Steve grips the sides of the chair instinctively as she tugs his briefs down and pulls out his dick, which is eager to get on with the proceedings: he's flushed crimson and slick at the tip. "Peggy—what are you—?"

"You know very well. Be quiet, or someone might come in." She eyes him up and leans forward, taking him into her _mouth_ and oh, okay, okay, that's _hot_ and tight and close, her tongue is moving, moving across his cock. He must make some kind of noise, because she releases him and glares upward. "I said _hush_."

"Oh, my God," he babbles, gripping the plastic chair so tightly he's sure it's bending. "Oh my _god_ oh my god, Peggy—"

"Mmm," she says, her mouth otherwise occupied. The hum sends vibrations through his whole body, and he fights to keep it together for just a _second—_

The door opens. Bucky shoulders in with a load of files. "Oh, hey, Steve," he says by way of greeting, and Peggy doesn't _stop_ , just keeps licking and sucking even faster, if that can be imagined. "Why are you sitting in the stenographer's desk? Where's Director Carter?"

Steve swallows and forces his voice to remain even. "I—uh, she told me to sit here and wait for her." Peggy's tongue swirls somewhere underneath the head of his dick and he jerks his knee unconsciously, sucking in a breath.

"You haven't seen her yet?"

"I have not," says Steve with a straight face as his wife's fingers make their way toward his balls below the desk. "I'm sure she's around."

"Huh. You look kinda flushed." Bucky leans on the desk and Steve wants to throw something at him. "You coming down with a fever?"

"Might be," says Steve, the hand on the chair out of Bucky's sight squeezing so tightly he's afraid it might break the metal. "Hey, do me—do me a favor, would you?"

"Sure."

"I'll be out of town for a while, but I'll be back. Keep an eye on things while I'm gone, will you? And—and if you see my wife before I do—" Peggy's teeth scrape gently down his cock, and Steve shuts his eyes, unable to keep the strain out of his voice. “Tell her I’m sorry, and I love her.”

"Will do, pal. I'll let you get back to waiting." Bucky grins at him and heads out, and the minute the door shuts Steve lets out a choked breath, trembling as Peggy uses her hand, slick with her own saliva, to help things along and _then_ he's finishing, spilling into her mouth with a stifled cry before he goes limp in the chair, his legs shaking.

Peggy stands up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I thought he'd never leave," she says.

"Uh," Steve moans.

She looks down at him with something like satisfaction, and Steve thinks she likes what she sees. He can almost see himself: flushed to the hairline, disheveled, pants undone with his dick hanging out. "You all right there, Captain?"

Miraculously, he finds words. Three of them, in fact. "Give me. Minute."

"Mmm. Does that fulfill your first condition?" She crosses back over to her desk, smoothing her blouse.

Steve gathers his wits and sits up, tucking himself away and trying to fix his appearance to look less as though he's just been thoroughly ravished by his wife in her office. "Just about," he says, standing and buckling his belt. "You want to go to dinner tonight?"

"I would like that, yes," says Peggy, bending down to find the memo and a pen. "So, what was the second condition?"

Steve tells her.

Peggy considers, then nods, and he picks up the pen, signing his name in a firm, even script on the waiting line.

* * *

One week later, Bucky Barnes is called up to Howard's lab at Camp Lehigh. "Rush order, sir, so sorry," says the harried assistant—a recent MIT grad, probably, in a lab coat and a crooked tie. "It just came in last night."

"I'm afraid I don't—" Bucky stops short at the sight of a two-foot long box on the stainless steel table, with a note attached. "What is it?"

"That's it, sir. The note's for you." The assistant waits at a distance while Bucky crosses over to the table and picks the note up in his hand, flipping it open.

Inside is handwriting he would have known anywhere, even and firm and easily read: _Buck. Hope you enjoy. Use wisely._ It's signed _Steve,_ and beneath that is a very hastily scrawled signature that looks like most of an H and an S with an unintelligible mess behind it: Howard's signature.

Bucky opens the box, popping the six latches laboriously with one hand, and cracks the lid to see what's inside. He looks at the contents for a very long time, until the image begins to swim with blurry tears, and he turns to the assistant.

"Can we get it on today?" he asks, half-choked up.

"Yes, sir."

Bucky swallows, trying to calm down. "It's the old one, right?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Stark called in some favors with some contacts in Africa and made a few updates for you. It should be lighter, with a better range of motion, and it should be totally painless to wear. There's also a, uh, Dr. Pym made you a special sleeve that fits over it, so you can wear it out in public without any issues."

"Dr. Pym, huh?"

The assistant smiles. "Well, his wife did most of the work. Particle something, mirroring your other arm—I have no idea what half of it means. She's a genius."

"You tell Janet I said thank you," says Bucky. He lets his right fingers trail down the slender metal plates of his left arm— _his_ arm, not Hydra's, not the Soviets', _his._ "It's about damn time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The Dubs hostage situation was very real, but the details of who killed him and how were completely unknown and remain a total mystery to this day.  
> -I'm aware that the time jumps are not exactly flowy and the tone is all over the place, but life is weird like that. If you jumped from my life 6 years ago to my life now you would also be flabbergasted. If only I had the time to do a year by year fic, smh.  
> -don't get comfy with the happy ending because next month we're hopping on the angst train to paintown


	32. July, 1987

The enormous, steel-reinforced doors of the underground silo are Soviet-made: heavy and thick enough to withstand a blast with the strength of two tons of TNT. If one was to somehow stumble past the barbed-wire fencing that guards the perimeter of the top-secret launch facility, deep in the bleak Siberian landscape, they would not see the doors until they were directly atop them, and by then the perimeter guards would have shot them dead anyway.

Today, however, the perimeter guards have been incapacitated by a well-placed set of Widow's Bites, and all five lie unconscious at their posts.

The great steel doors crumple like tinfoil under gleaming vibranium fingers, and James Buchanan Barnes tears them clean off their hinges. "Go, go, _go_!" he barks at his team, gesturing with his other arm. Sarah and James Rogers leap down into the shaft, jumping from rung to rung. At thirty-two and thirty-five, both of them are in their prime and seemingly haven't aged since they were in their mid-twenties. Behind them, Natasha Romanoff tucks her ankles to her backside and leaps straight down, careless and graceful as a falling star.

Bucky shakes his head in admiration and follows them down. He can already hear that Sarah has reached the bottom and is dealing with the guards, and as he lands in a pale spot of summer sunlight at the bottom of the access shaft, James pokes his head around the corner and beckons.

"All clear," he says.

"Good." Bucky taps his ear piece.  "Ant-Man and Wasp, are you in position?"

The answer is small and blurred with static, but clear enough as Hank Pym's voice comes through. " _Affirmative, sir. The Soviets have been alerted to the presence of intruders."_

Janet speaks then, sounding more alarmed. " _I have a visual. They're arming the ICBM."_

"Shit," Bucky says. "What kind of range are we looking at here?"

" _If the information we have is correct, this looks like an RSD-10. Long-range, probably capable of wiping out a large American coastal city."_

"Figure out what the target is _now_ ," Natasha orders. "Come on, let's go! Run!"

All four of them go racing down the tunnel, Nat taking the lead and zigzagging effortlessly through the maze of dark stone and concrete, fluorescent lights and steel. "We've got to be miles underground," James says to his sister, feet pounding the concrete.

"Good thing you're not claustrophobic," Sarah shoots back, grinning. "What's better, this or having to go to Howard's kid's graduation?"

"Oh, Jesus," groans James. "Don't remind me. Tony thinks he’s God’s gift to the planet."

Sarah laughs. "It was your turn, and anyway, Tony's practically a third Rogers kid with the amount of time Mom spends mentoring him."

“Yeah, for the amount of good it does his ego.”

They all stop running as the tunnel they're in abruptly ends in a huge, locked steel door. Natasha yanks out her utility pack, finds a few wads of C-4, arms it with fuses, sets a timer, and drags them all back to shelter behind a couple of crates in the hallway.

"When it blows," she says in hushed tones, "top priority is stopping that missile from launching—"

The doors blow, and a wailing klaxon goes off, lights flashing in the corridor as the four of them race into the enormous missile silo. Sarah blinks up at the sunlight shining down on them, the massive doors above already open, as Bucky and James rush for the console, shouting in Russian at the operators, who are shouting back, hands in the air, screaming—

"We're too late," says Nat, ashen, and no sooner do the words leave her mouth than fire and smoke erupt from the bottom of the huge ICBM, billowing up around the platform and blocking their sight.

Nat stumbles to the rail and shields her face, dragging Sarah backward into the hallway they came from. "Stay here!" she shouts, and James skids in, his boots marking the floor. "Where's Barnes?"

"I thought he—" James turns back, but a blaze of light fills the tunnel, making all three of them shield their eyes as the missile slowly, ponderously lifts off, the loudest roar they've ever heard filling their ears.

"Hank!" Nat screams into her earpiece, covering both sides of her head. "Janet, _stop it! You have to stop it!_ "

There's no answer, or maybe there is one, but they just can't hear it, and they all three remain where they are until the huge rocket is gone up into the summer sky, leaving greasy smoke drifting in the corridor.

"We have to find Bucky—" Sarah rolls to her feet, darting for the door: it still feels weird to call him just Bucky, even though he'd insisted, where _is_ he?

Natasha almost bowls her over on her way out, and all three of them cough as they emerge into the smoky, bright silo, sunshine streaming down in beams. "Split up. Look for him. Hurry."

James takes the right, Sarah, the left, and Nat clips a cord to the rail of the scaffolding and rappels down, bouncing off hot steel as she lowers further and further, looking for any sign of him, even a body.

 _Don't you dare be dead, James Buchanan Barnes,_ she thinks. _Don't. You promised me._ An image of the last mission they'd done fills her mind's eye—they'd gone to the nearest Ihop and eaten stacks of pancakes after retrieving that 083 from that commune in California, and Bucky had made her laugh, and after, in the alley, close and damp and hot, he had _promised_ —

Her feet hit concrete that's still so hot, her boot soles go tacky. Natasha unclips her line and shouts, “ _Barnes!_ " It echoes in the enormous room beneath: _Bar-bar-barnes!_ She shivers, despite the heat, and draws her batons, slinking into the shadows sideways.

Something is down here. She can feel it. Something lurks just out of sight, maybe behind her; something is waiting for her. _Don't be ridiculous,_ she chides herself even as she moves to press her back against the wall. _You have not been a child in fifty years, and there is no need to be afraid of monsters in the dark._

A step echoes behind her, and she whirls, both hands going to her sidearms—but it's just Bucky, stepping forward into the light. "Natasha," he greets her, just… standing there and staring with vague eyes. How did he get down here?

Something isn't—

" _We can't stop it!"_ The voice is Pym's: panicking and loud and frazzled in her ear. Natasha had almost forgotten about them, and remembers the ICBM. " _We're over the Pacific! My—"_ he begins to cut out, and Nat whirls, clapping her hand to her ear. " _malfunctioned—explosion—"_

Sarah's voice joins the fray, and that's when Natasha, focused wholly on the mission and ignoring Bucky Barnes, is knocked off her feet and slammed into the hot concrete.

* * *

James grabs his sister as they round back to the meeting point. "Nat's not answering her comms, and this place is deserted."

Sarah pushes him away and grabs her earpiece. "Pym!" she shouts, her voice echoing off the empty walls. "Status!" There's no signal coming through, and she turns back to her brother. "What were you saying?"

He grabs her by the bicep to make her look at him. "Aunt Nat's _gone_. So's Uncle Bucky. Every single one of these Russian scientists has disappeared, too: which means in the space between Bucky going over to stop them and Nat pulling us back through the doors—"

Sarah catches up. "They all disappeared—but they can't have, because Nat's not answering. Where did they go?"

He frowns. "Do you think—"

A strangled scream floats up from below, and Sarah doesn't even look down before flinging herself over the railing and bouncing the whole way down, rail to rail like a circus performer. James follows, after making sure his weapons are secure.They land in a pool of pale sunlight from far above, and once their eyes adjust, they can see Bucky.

He's got his metal arm wrapped around Natasha's throat in a stranglehold, and she's blue-lipped and choking, scratching at his arm with broken fingernails. Her feet are feebly kicking.

"Uncle _Bucky_!" screams Sarah, horrified, and he looks up at her with total disinterest, as if she's a stranger: a _stranger_ : her, his goddaughter, his _niece_.

Nat's eyes flutter open and focus on them. "Trigger. Words," she chokes out, the vein in her forehead bulging. "If he. Says. Them. _Shoot. Me_."

James draws his Colt .45 and aims at his uncle's head without a sliver of hesitation. "Barnes. Let her go."

" _No_ —" gasps Nat, and Bucky mutters something in Russian, draws his own weapon effortlessly with his flesh-and-bone hand, aims it at James' head, using Nat as a human shield, and—

"No!" screams Sarah, and shoves James down and out of the way as a shot goes off, the bullet thudding into concrete as both of them duck and roll for cover, but there is no cover, not down here. Natasha's dragged backward as Bucky keeps firing, and Sarah rolls to a knee just in time to watch her slam her foot as hard as she can into the man's crotch, drag him forward, and roll him off her, staggering back and coughing as he shakes his head like a stunned animal and raises himself back up to all fours.

"Nat!" she screams, and the woman darts for her, drawing her twin Glock semiautomatic pistols and aiming them at Bucky. She's crying, tears streaking down her face, or maybe she's just in pain, or both. "What's happening?"

"Hydra," Nat wheezes, and that's when Bucky sights James, still in position on Sarah's three, and decides to charge. Barnes is older and more experienced, but James is younger and has a good inch on his uncle, and the two of them crash to the floor, grappling for their lives.

Nat yanks Sarah's hand to her in the fray. "Listen to me. _Listen_ ," she rasps. "They're _here_. They're—they've—deep programming, I didn't know, I didn't _know_. If they—if they start on me, if they say anything and I—I become someone else, you have to _shoot me._ "

"I'm not going to shoot you," Sarah insists, automatically checking Natasha for bruises. Her throat is a wreath of scarlet marks, and Sarah's never seen her aunt look this scared in her life. _Oh, and don't forget we have a goddamn ICBM heading for the West Coast._ "How do we deprogram Bucky?"

"I don't think we can." Nat's still got tears streaking down her face. "You—you have to, you have to get out of here before they come _back_ —"

Sarah shakes her head, mind racing. "We'll pull Bucky out. He has to, there has to be some kind of word to undo the—"

"You're not _listening_!" Natasha digs her fingers into Sarah's arm. "This is deep programming, it _can't_ be undone—"

A cry from James alerts them both to the scuffle still taking place twelve feet away. Sarah's mouth falls open as she catches sight of her brother's bloodied nose and mouth, his hands wrapped around Bucky's throat as the older man bears down on his windpipe with a forearm. " _Don't_ —!" she screams, and without even thinking, draws, aims, and fires.

Bucky Barnes staggers sideways, blinking like a wounded bull with a hand clapped to his neck, as James pushes him away and starts army-crawling toward his sister and Nat. One hand arcs through the air, signaling _go, get out_ , and Sarah fights to keep herself from getting sick as blood stains her uncle's uniform and drips to the concrete in a crimson splatter.

Behind Barnes, three men emerge, and with them, a woman: blonde, tall, beautiful, with piercing eyes, high cheekbones, full lips—and wearing a Soviet Army uniform. Sarah stops in her tracks and blurts out, " _Anna_?" before realizing her mistake—no, this woman is younger— _must_ be younger, Anna is forty-two with silvery threads in her hair that her cousins don't yet have and this woman is young, as young and ageless as Nat, with blue eyes, not gray.

Natasha yanks Sarah behind her with a grip like iron. "I _killed_ you," she spits. " _Ya ubil tebya."_

"You tried," says the other woman simply. She does not even deign to look at Natasha, her eyes fixed on Bucky as the three men advance. For his part, Bucky remains motionless, clinging to his neck as James reaches his sister and yanks himself up to stand, one arm stretched out in front of the women as if flesh and bone could stand against the bullets in their pistols. "My poor _kotenok._ You have grown old. What have they done to you?"

"He is not _yours_ ," spits Nat, practically vibrating but unwilling to engage. "And he will never be."

“And you think he is yours?” The blonde woman clicks her tongue. " _Tch._ _Soldat?"_

" _Da_ ," says Bucky, immediately standing to attention.

"Kill the man. Leave the two others to me."

Barnes immediately draws his Colt 1911 and aims it directly at James' head, without a single moment of hesitation. There is nothing in his blue eyes, nothing at all.

" _No!_ " screams Natasha, a bloodcurdling roar, and pushes past James, knocking him aside, bringing up something small in her hand—Sarah hears her cry something in Russian she doesn't quite catch, and then Bucky's arm lights up in blue and silver electricity. The shocks wrack his body, smoke comes from the arm, and he is forced to the concrete as the woman screams in outrage. Natasha grips Sarah and James with both of her hands and screams, "Run! _Run!_ "

Sarah couldn't remember the escape. It came in flashes when she tried to recall it forever after: racing down a concrete tunnel, tears blinding her as her uncle screamed in pain behind them, echoing down the corridor; James' labored, wheezing breath and the bruises on his throat, visible above his collar; Nat's torn and bleeding hands dragging them out, out; a door, creaking on its enormous hinges; a climb, rung by rung; the outside light streaming down on them.

She does remember, after, the way Natasha had bent double in the sparse grass, sick. She remembers when their radios, freed from the subterranean concrete, finally crackled back to life, and the only thing coming across was Hank Pym's desperate wails of agonized grief.

 _The missile,_ she remembers thinking, detached and still in shock as Nat radios in for an extraction and requests a retrieval of one agent somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

One. Not two. Only one.

Janet van Dyne is gone.

* * *

Steve Rogers wipes his hands on his paint-stained cloth and surveys his latest work with satisfaction. It’s another landscape, but he likes working on those: putting detail into the trunks of the trees that line the back of the property, the yellow light streaming through the leaves. _Therapeutic_ , he thinks, and sips his cold coffee with satisfaction. His record player is blasting out Bruce Springsteen’s _Born in the U.S.A._ , and he taps his foot to the beat as he washes the blue off his brush.

_Born down in a dead man’s town, the first step I took was when I hit the ground…_

The blue swirls into the water, as if he’s diluted the sky and brought it down to his sink. It’s a nice setup he has here, even if it is Boston and if he’s had to live under an assumed name and only seen his wife twice in the past eight years. Secluded and green and peaceful. Like Central Park. He kinda misses Central Park.

“I’m still too much of a city boy for this damn place,” he says to himself, and sets the canvas up to dry. Bruce is still roaring out the lyrics behind him from his Dual. _So they put a rifle in my hand, sent me off to a foreign land…_ There’s a rumble coming up the drive that Steve can just barely hear, even with his heightened senses. “I really am getting old,” he mutters, tossing his towel aside and poking his head out of the screen door of the closed-in porch that serves as his studio. It’s definitely a SHIELD car, black and modern and boxy, and Steve frowns: his scheduled check in with Agents Jackson and Rawlins isn’t until tomorrow night. Did they forget?

He steps out, wincing at the twinge in his leg (that injury from '51 seems to be creeping back in his old age) and waits. He likes the two men assigned to cover him well enough, but they know full well Saturday is off limits. Steve’s growing fond of having alone time. Maybe it’s one of the kids? He perks up a little. That first year and a half with James had been _great:_ he’d brought a girlfriend home—frizzy-haired girl with enormous glasses who wore sandals and liked making pottery, of all things; then a boyfriend, who’d had an earring and bleached hair and seemed stunned that an old fogey like Steve was all right with his son “playing both sides” and in between and around the entrances of Susan and Eric, Steve and Jamie had gotten to spend some quality time with each other for a while. It would have been perfect, he reflects, if only…

The car parks at the top of the drive and the door opens, gleaming as it catches the afternoon sunlight and shuts, exposing—

His wife. Peggy. _Peggy._ Steve’s heart leaps at the sight of her, an initial adrenaline rush, a flurry of excited thoughts: _what is she doing here? I didn’t expect her! The house is a mess! Dinner? Does she want—_

Then he sees her, really sees her, and elation turns to cold fear that sends a prickle down his back. She looks… _old_ , and more tired than he’s ever seen her look before. Her hair is liberally streaked with gray, and she’s not wearing any makeup—in fact, she’s in a creased and unkempt suit skirt and blouse and as she stumbles to him across the gravel walk, all he can think is: _one of the kids is dead. Oh,God. One of the kids._

The faint streams of music still blare out from behind the screened in porch, and Peggy reaches him, grips him by the biceps, and lets out a shuddering gasp. “Barnes,” she chokes, and Steve cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot move. “They took him. Hydra took him back. I’m so sorry. Steve. I'm so sorry.”

Behind them both, the record plays in the silence.

_I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong. They’re still there, he’s all gone._

_Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A._

* * *

“I know this isn’t a good time,” says Anna, slipping into the office with both hands clenched into fists at her sides.

Peggy sets her pen down and rubs her temples. “My dear girl,” she says, exhausted, “I’ve just lost a top agent to Hydra and a team member has died. Agent Romanoff wants to go into temporary inactivity. Dr. Pym is in mourning. I’m going to likely have to disband the entire team. Nothing you can possibly say can make this week worse.”

“Good,” says Anna, pale. “Because I’m pregnant.”

Peggy blinks very slowly, then stands up, goes over to the door, and opens it. “Chrissy,” she says, flagging down an intern. “Tea, please. Two cups.” There is nothing better for the constitution and concentration like a good hot cup of tea, and she’s going to need both.

“Yes, Director Carter,” says the girl, whose mass of Farrah Fawcett-like blond hair bounces as she scurries away.

Peggy turns back to her niece. "Sit down," she says, and Anna does so as Chrissy slips in with a tea tray and leaves it on Peggy's desk. The door shuts behind her, and Peggy sits.  Neither of them says a word until the tea is poured and both cups are nestled securely in both hands. "I assume you know who the father is," says Peggy delicately.

"Yes," says Anna, still white as a sheet. "He's. He—well, he's not going to be able to be a father. Not to this baby, I mean."

Peggy takes a cautious sip and looks her niece over. She might pass for late thirties with the silvery threads in her blond hair and the laugh lines at the corners of her gray eyes, (the slow aging inherited, perhaps, from her mother? Who can tell?) but numbers are numbers. "You're aware that at your age you're considered a high-risk pregnancy?"

"Yes," Anna says firmly. "I don't—I'm not getting rid of it."

That hadn't been where she'd been going at all, but she blinks. "You _want_ a child?" Peggy lets some surprise creep into her voice; Anna hasn't shown interest in having children or even having a beau since Michael died. To her shock, tears start welling up in Anna's eyes.

"I didn't, not at first—I was going to, to, to go to the Planned Parenthood, and, and take care of it—but then I read Natasha's statement, the declassified one, and the blond agent, the one who took Uncle Bucky back—she's my mother. I know she is. She's my _mother,_ and how—how can I just toss a baby out like I don't care? Like she did? Like she did to _me_?" Anna's voice trembles with emotion, and Peggy stands up quickly, takes her cup and saucer, sets them aside, and wraps her in a hug.

"Your mother _loved_ you," she whispers firmly. "She's—I _know_ it's emotional, but we cannot let ourselves forget that she is a good person deep down who—"

"She's _not_ ," Anna snaps, voice cracking. "She's not, she's horrible and I never want to be like her, _never_. You've told me for _years_ that she'd come back to me one day and she's never coming back. I have to—I'm _forty_ , I have to accept my mother is gone."

Peggy lets her go and regards her gently. "Perhaps she is," she murmurs. "But you don't have to be."

"What am I going to do?" Anna wipes her eyes. "I didn't think—I was so stupid, I thought I couldn't have kids because I'd just never been, you know, pregnant."

"That doesn't matter now," says Peggy briskly. "We'll work something out. You can—let me think. It isn't 1930 anymore and unwed mothers aren't sent to an abbey or a home or an aunt across the country. What do _you_ want?"

Anna looks down. "I…I want to think about it. What I want, I mean. I close my eyes and think about a baby and I see us together in a little house…" Her voice chokes up. "Just us. Happy. Together."

Peggy smiles. "Then we'll find you a little house, my darling. You and baby will have a perfectly—good Lord, I'll be a great-aunt, won't I?"

"Never expected you'd be a great-aunt before you'd be a grandmother?" Anna grins at her.

"Absolutely not. Now let me set aside these building plans and find my pen and start working on some sums and schedules, and I shall get you into an obstetrics clinic immediately—and you drink that tea before it goes cold, it's the last of my decent English Breakfast."

* * *

Hope van Dyne, aged seven, sits in the front row at the memorial service at the San Francisco Bay. Her feet don't quite reach the ground, black patent leather reflecting the sunshine of the day, and the black ribbon that Rose had carefully tied into her long brown hair is coming loose. The Golden Gate Bridge stretches out in front of her like a road a million miles long, and the minister had said something about Mommy being at the golden gates of heaven, so Hope pretends to herself for a second that she will jump on it, running and running, and at the end, if she just runs hard and fast enough, Mommy will be there with her arms wide open, smiling and laughing and saying, " _Oh, Jellybean, I missed you so much."_

Daddy is sitting next to her, but he hasn't spoken to her all day, and after the minister finishes saying nice things about Mommy and Hope walks up with him to put a wreath of flowers into the water, he still doesn't look at her, and Rose takes her hand as he walks away to go talk to the people from his work that came to the service.

"Hi," says a man, and Hope squints up into a face she doesn't know. He bends down to see her, and she thinks he's kind of old, older than Daddy, but not as old as Rose. Or maybe he _is_ as old as Rose. He's wearing a black suit and tie, and his hair, which looks like a mix of blond and silver, is combed back in an old-fashioned kind of way. "Hope, isn't it?"

"Yes," she says hesitantly, and looks at Rose.

"This is Director Carter—your daddy's friend, it's her husband," Rose says gently, squeezing her hand.

"Oh." Hope tries to remember her manners, but Daddy's back is still turned, and she fights tears in her eyes. "It's—nice to meet you, Mr. Carter."

The man smiles, but it looks sad. "Do you want to sit with me? We can look at the bridge together. There's a lot of seagulls."

Hope looks up at Rose, and Rose nods, so she slips her hand into Mr. Carter's and he walks her a few yards away from all the somber grownups, where they sit on the rocks and look at the Golden Gate Bridge. "My daddy doesn't love me anymore," she says after a moment, swinging her patent-leather shoes. Her heart feels like it's been squeezed very hard, down into a tight knot.

"I'm sorry," says Mr. Carter, and he looks like he means it. "You know I have two children?"

"You do?" Hope looks up at him.

"Yep. They're grownups now. You see over there?" He points. "Sarah is the lady in the black dress and hat with the shiny shoes like yours, and James is the man talking to your daddy."

Hope squints. "With the big shoulders?"

"That's the one." He sighs. "Seems like yesterday they were your age, and now they're grownups and have houses of their own. That's the important thing: time goes so fast, and before you know it you're going to be a grownup, Hope. But I still love them. I always did. Even when they frustrated me and got into fights and when bad things happened. I still loved them."

"Does Daddy still love me?" Hope chews her lip. It doesn't _feel_ like he does.

Mr. Carter nods. "Of course he does. You're his daughter. He's just… maybe a little bad at showing it right now."

"I want my mommy," Hope says, in a very small voice. "If she was here, she'd fix it." Tears well up in her eyes, and she scrubs them away.

"I know," says Mr. Carter. "I lost my mom when I was young, too. Not as young as you, but missing her was… it was like for a year, I kept saying I'd show my mother something, or tell her something, and then I'd remember she wasn’t there anymore."

"How did she die?" asks Hope. "Was it a plane crash, too?"

"No," says Mr. Carter, shaking his head. "It was tuberculosis. Do you know what that is?"

"A disease?" she guesses.

"Yup. She was a nurse, and caught it from other sick people. It never went away, and she died." He blinks quickly, and Hope is amazed: this grownup man is crying. "It's been a really long time since she died, and I think I'll still miss her a little every day."

"How long?" The seagulls squawk overhead, diving and turning.

"Let's see." Mr. Carter looks out over the water. "She died in 1936, so that was… about fifty years ago. I'm almost seventy, but I feel much older than that sometimes, and sometimes I don't feel seventy at all."

Hope's blown away. "You're so _old_ ," she blurts out, then clamps her mouth shut, afraid he'll scold her for being rude, but he just laughs, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling up.

"I sure am," he agrees. "Older than I look, that's for sure. You don't remember me, but I was at your christening."

"You were?" Hope likes to look at those pictures. They're framed and on the wall downstairs at home: herself as a baby in a white lacey dress, her daddy smiling, her mommy holding her and beaming in her spring-green suit.

"Yep." Mr. Carter smiles, and it reminds her of a poster on the wall at school, a poster with a picture of Captain America smiling and saying _do the right thing!_ Suddenly she's not so sure she got his name right. "You screamed like the dickens when the minister put that cold water on your forehead, but your mom rocked you a little and you stopped crying and fell asleep before the end of the service."

"Mr. Carter, are you…" she begins, but she's interrupted by Rose coming up to hold her hand again.

"Come along, dear," she says. "Your daddy is getting ready to go."

Hope means to turn back, to ask the man if he's Captain America, even though it's silly, but ahead of her she can see her father storming away, leaving Director Carter (who she knows a little; Director Carter came to her sixth birthday party and gave her a set of books as a present) looking very sad, like she might cry, behind him.

She means to turn back, but after all, she is only seven, and so Hope van Dyne clings to Rose's hand as she trails after her father, wondering why Director Carter is so sad, and she forgets that she thought the man was Captain America, and afterward the memory only comes to her in bits: a kind man, the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the seagulls wheeling overhead.

* * *

November comes, and with it in Boston, sleet and pouring rain, a chill that pervades the walls and down to the bone. Thanksgiving is no better, with Peggy deciding to stay with a full-term Anna and Steve hosting James and Sarah at "the farm" as they're calling the safe house.

"It's really a shame," Anna's saying as she rests her swollen feet on the ottoman clutching a mug of hot cocoa, "that they sent her to _boarding school_. I can't imagine. That poor girl."

"Well," says Peggy, sipping from her own mug, "better to be looked after by professionals than by Hank Pym t the moment—and you must _never_ breathe that to another soul."

Anna laughs. "I'm a black hole of secrets, Aunt Peggy. Speaking of, how's the Triskelion planning coming along?"

"Oh, God," Peggy groans, swinging her feet off the table. "I still have to go to Congress after the holidays to do all the usual grubbing for a bigger budget, and I'll be lucky to net a million with Reagan. That jumped-up movie star has absolutely no idea how to run a bloody country, and if I have to—"

Anna suddenly frowns and looks down at the enormous curve of her belly. "I—" She stands, and turns bright pink: there's a wet spot on the sofa. "Oh, God."

"Ah," says Peggy, setting the cup aside. "That'll be your waters. We shall leave the political discussions to a later date."

"Oh no, oh God," Anna pants, looking like she might faint. "It's happening. It's actually—"

"It is indeed. I shall call the ambulance. Sit down, please, and do try to focus on contractions." Peggy quickly crosses to the house telephone and dials as quickly as she can, first the hospital and then Steve's number at the farm.

The phone rings and rings, and Steve picks up on the fifth. " _Hello_?" he asks amiably.

"Steve. Darling. Anna's waters have broken and she's going into labor. I'll call you from the hospital with any more updates."

" _Hey, that's great! You tell her we'll be there as soon as she feels up to seeing people. I'll tell the kids."_ Peggy can hear a laugh in the back, and a muffled, _Dad, I'm thirty-one_!

Anna is hyperventilating in the living room. Peggy spits out, "I'll let you know as soon as I can!" and rushes back to her frantic niece. "Heavens, Anna. You're not going to have the baby right this moment. Breathe."

"I'm so scared," Anna pants, tears streaking her face. "I'm not brave like you, Aunt Peggy. Oh, God. What was I thinking?" Fresh tears fall. "I should never have done this, I can't, I _can't_ —"

"Well, you must," says Peggy reasonably, "so finish your tea while we wait for the ambulance."

* * *

Peggy really doesn't begrudge Anna the fact that obstetrics has advanced to the point that no birthing mother is knocked unconscious with anesthetic during the process at any time, and certainly not for the fact that she's even allowed to sit upright between contractions. "You're doing very well," she encourages as Anna breathes deeply through her nose, sweat stuck to her forehead. The nurse comes by every so often to check that everything's progressing as usual, but other than that there are no visitors.

"I want Uncle Steve," Anna whimpers after one particularly bad contraction.

"He and your cousins are coming," Peggy reassures her, patting her back.

"I want Dad," she sobs a minute later, clinging to Peggy's hand.

"Oh, my darling," whispers Peggy, rubbing her neck gently. "I know you do. It'll be all done with soon."

* * *

"Are we late?" Steve shrugs off his car coat and stops to give Peggy a kiss on the cheek as James and Sarah hurry past their parents with balloons.

"Not at all. Right on time. Come along." Peggy beams at him. "Baby's in the nursery, and it's nearly time for a wheeling in to see Mama."

"Boy or girl?" Steve follows his wife.

"You'll see soon enough," Peggy says, and ushers him into Anna's room, where she's sitting, smiling at her cousins and happily accepting the Mylar balloons with CONGRATULATIONS written across them in gaudy font.

"We were going to get pink or blue," Sarah's saying, "but we didn't know what—"

"Oh, here's baby now," says Peggy, and they stand aside to let the nurse wheel in the little plastic bin holding a yawning, crumple-faced newborn who looks very much like some sort of bald monkey in a white and green striped receiving blanket and a tiny pink hat.

"Oh, my god," says Sarah, grinning so widely it looks like her face is about to split. "It's a _girl!_ "

James pretends to sigh. "And here I was hoping to even out the score in this family." He smiles and kisses his cousin on the head. "What'd'ya name her?"

"I couldn't decide for the longest time," says Anna. "She'll—I want her to have the Carter name. Like me."

"Of course she shall," Peggy assures her. Steve, bending over to look at his great-niece, gets an odd expression on his face that she can't quite place, but she turns her attention back to Anna: any issue Steve has with the baby having her last name can wait. "Your father would be so proud."

Anna smiles tremulously. "And I was thinking… Sharon. Like Sharon Stone. It's such a pretty name."

Across from them both, Steve goes a peculiar shade of almost… _green_ , but Peggy doesn't pay it much mind: both James and Sarah are enthusiastically praising the name and Anna is beaming. "I think it's lovely," says Peggy. "Sharon Car—"

"Excuse me," says Steve tightly, and gets up, hurrying out of the room.

"What's wrong with Dad?" asks Sarah, baffled.

Peggy frowns. "I'll go check on him. You two let your cousin hold the baby for a moment and I'll be back in a jiffy."

* * *

He's leaning against the hallway wall when she finds him, gone sickly white in the fluorescent lighting: the shadows make him look as if he's aged a decade overnight and Peggy's half-afraid to approach him. "Steve?" she ventures, stepping forward.

"I—I'm fine," Steve says thickly, voice gone reedy. He clears his throat. "Fine. Just needed some air."

"You most certainly do not need some air," she retorts. "What on earth's the matter?"

He shakes his head and steps away. "If I told you, you'd—you'd probably kill me," he mutters. "I—it's not something I—"

"The baby," says Peggy, realization breaking. "If you came out of the ice in the twenty-teens, she'd be…what, twenty-eight or so? Did you know her as an adult?" The idea is fascinating: what was baby Sharon going to do with her life?

"I did," says Steve, looking ill.

She's still at a loss. "Then what—what on earth are you so flustered about?" A horrible thought enters her mind. "Oh, Lord. Don't tell me she turns out to be some sort of awful person."

Steve shuts his eyes. "No—"

"Hydra agent?"

"Peggy—"

Anything's possible, really. "Serial killer?"

He forces a wry little half-smile. "Much worse."

"Steve, what could possibly be worse th—"

Steve braces himself on the rail that's been helpfully mounted along the wall to assist invalids walking down the hallway. "I think you'd better sit down."

Peggy rolls her eyes, more annoyed than anything. "For heaven's sake. There's nowhere to sit down, and anyway you look as if you need a seat more than I—"

"She was—will be—my _girlfriend_ ," he chokes out, in a tiny little voice that doesn't quite come out of his chest so much as the back of his mouth, so small and so full of shock that Peggy doesn't hear the words for a moment, and then she _does_ hear them, and goes back to being horrified instead of just irritated.

"I—" Peggy can't think of a single thing to say at all, and grips the rail alongside him; repeating what he's just said will have to do. "Your girlfriend." The axis of the planet has tilted: suddenly she's whirling off-center and thinking about a younger Steve in the arms of a woman with her niece's blond hair, and _that_ opens an old, old wound; Private Lorraine with her hands wrapped around Steve's tie, her golden waves gleaming in the lights of the War Room. _But I'm your wife!_ she wants to scream, even though she _knows_ that Lorraine was a misunderstanding and she _knows_ , rationally, that the Steve who _will_ be Sharon's beau isn't _this_ Steve, right in front of her, and that _that_ Steve wasn't married to her.

She knows all this. She still wants to strangle him.

The pallor of Steve's face has given way to a greenish tinge. "I didn't know," he says tightly. "Not when I met her. She—she was a neighbor. She liked me. I liked her. We—we didn't really _date,_ we, uh, sort of danced around it for two years, and she only told me she was related to you at your funeral. There was…an incident. I can't tell you much, but she remained absolutely—she's going to be a _good person,_ Peggy. A good person who does the right thing even when the whole world is telling her not to."

Peggy unravels for a moment to make sure she has the verb tense correct. "Did you sleep with her?" she whispers, voice shaking slightly.

"No," says Steve firmly. "I did not. You know that, Peggy."

Of course she does; she just wants to hear him say it. That's something, at least. "And your—the other you, he won't—"

"Absolutely not," Steve says. "He's me. I'm him. He won't do anything I wouldn't do. Plus, I didn't—he won't know she's related to you at all, and she's not blood-related to _me_."

"That does _not_ make me feel any better about this," says Peggy, rubbing her temples.

"I can't go back in there," Steve mutters, still ashen-faced. "I can't. I can't look at that baby and be reminded every time I see her—"

"You have to," Peggy snaps. "She's your bloody great-niece—"

"Can you _please_ not say that right now?"

"What do you want me to say?" Her fingers curl around the rail, making it creak. "'Congratulations, Steve: you're a great-uncle to a baby that will become a young woman that your younger self in the _future_ will become involved with?"

"We _weren't_ —I shouldn't have said 'girlfriend'," he says miserably. "It wasn't like that."

"Then what was it like?" she demands.

Steve rubs his eyes. "We kissed. Once. And after that nothing else happened between us."

Be that as it may, Peggy still can't shake the sick feeling from the pit of her stomach. She had thought everything was _fine,_ thank you: she could handle Pym's departure from SHIELD and Janet's death and her niece giving birth all in the same year, and _this_ had to come cropping up like an ugly weed on top of it all. Sarah had decided she'd rather do desk work instead of field work, and James was indecisive but about _this close_ to hanging up his helmet and going back to work for the EPA like he'd always wanted, which meant she would lose two of her best assets in the field, apart from Romanoff, who had been allowed to take indefinite leave and to cut all her last ties with the Soviets under American protection—and who was currently off in Montana on some sort of self-discovery journey, if the reports from her protection detail were to be believed. Peggy is so, so tired.

"You will go back into that room and crow over your _great-niece_ until it's time for us all to leave," she says firmly. "After we go, I don't care what you do. If I must act as the only other family figure this child will ever have, then so be it."

Steve blinks at her. She almost expects him to protest, to splutter out that she's being ridiculous, but to her everlasting shock, he simply says, "Maybe that'll be for the best."

 _But you can't be my estranged husband,_ Peggy wants to cry, hands balled into fists. _I love you. I want you with me._ "Will you at least send her cards and birthday presents?" she asks instead.

"Yes. I don't—I don't want her knowing me." Steve passes a hand over his eyes. "I'll just be some nameless great-uncle. I can't—"

The pain in his face is real, real and sickening; Peggy's heart goes a little soft. "You can stay at the safehouse in Massachusetts for as long as you want to," she tells him. "I'll—I'll fudge something to Anna. She needn't ever know. And the children won't need to know either."

He tries to chuckle, but it's dry and lifeless. "I'll become a reclusive eccentric in my old age," he says.

"We'll work it out. We always do." Peggy slips a hand across his back. "Let's go back. Come along."

So Steve does, every step feeling like lead, back to the room where his niece smiles and cradles her red, wrinkled daughter in her arms; all he can see are the words SHARON CARTER: MISSING flashing on a screen in the Avengers compound in his mind's eye and all he can feel is immeasurable sadness at a loss that hasn't happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -oh NO I am the worst, etc. im sorry! just think about Nat finding herself in the mountains being a lumberjack, okay? shhhh  
> -I'm trying REALLY HARD to stick to a once a month update but holy shit working 40 hours a week sucks dong and also children are exhausting why did I do this to myself  
> -There will be maybe....six chapters left. MAYBE. I have some major points I want to hit in 89, 91, 95, 01, and MAYBE 08, in addition to an epilogue-ish chapter that I'm sure is going to kill everyone. We're drawing to a close!!


	33. June 24, 1989

"I'm sorry," says Peggy Carter through her teeth as she marches down the halls of the Triskelion, suited men and women parting before her. Howard Stark follows her, his lined face and white hair pulling a strange contrast to her own fading, but still brown, waves of hair streaked with silver. "I'm sorry, tell me you did _not_ just say Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. is being _decommissioned?"_

"Carter, Jesus, _not_ out here in the open—"

She practically kicks her office door open and shoves him inside, slamming the door. "I will only ask you this _once_ , Howard. Where is the Tesseract?"

He swallows. "Gone," he says hoarsely.

"Gone," she repeats. "As in. _Missing,_ gone, or _stolen,_ gone, or—"

"As in, vanished off the surface of the Earth as far as we can tell, _gone_ ," he mutters through his teeth. "I'm not any happier about it than you are, Peggy. One of their top scientists, a Dr. Wendy Lawson, has been declared KIA in a crash involving a classified spacecraft, along with a test pilot, whose—" Both thin lips press down into a line like paper.

She presses on, undaunted. "Whose _what_?"

"Whose remains were never found. Only half her dog tag."

" _Her_?" Peggy blinks. "She was—what, Navy? Air Force?"

"Yes, Air Force. They pulled her to fly the test missions since the military doesn't allow women to fly in combat missions." Howard looks sick. "We've covered our tracks. The other pilot Lawson had working for the project has been informed as to the decommissioning of P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and has been offered a hefty retirement sum. Neither pilot knew about the particulars of the craft they were piloting, so we have nothing to worry about there."

Sometimes she almost misses the days when the biggest thing she had to worry about was codebreaking at Bletchley. "What particulars?"

Howard steels himself. "Dr. Lawson was using the Tesseract to create an engine that could travel at lightspeed."

 _Lightspeed_. Peggy's mouth drops open: all she can think of is Star Wars and hyperspace, but this isn't science fiction—this is _reality._ "Why wasn't I told about this?" she demands.

"You can't be privy to every little thing that goes on in SHIELD," Howard tells her. "When Pierce signed off on Reinhardt's release, you almost had a cow."

The memory of that, still fresh, makes Peggy's blood rise again. "He had a _life sentence—"_

"—That he served forty-four years of in the Rat and was a model prisoner—"

Now they're both shouting, and she couldn't care less. "He took a _girl_ and left her caged in a filthy laboratory—"

"It was _fifty years ago!_ You see, this is why we don't tell you everything!" he barks, slapping his hand down on the table. "This isn't the Peggy Carter Show: things need to be done sometimes that aren't all that great for the good of everyone else! Don't you think the benefits outweigh the—"

"I have never once in my life believed that the ends justify the means, Howard Stark," Peggy says icily, "so you can just stop that right where you're—"

"We've lost Hank for good to his own enterprises," Howard continues. "We've got that diplomatic situation in Africa that I was asked to stay out of for my own good, and _now_ we've lost the Tesseract. The last thing we need is you _moralizing_ to the Board of Directors."

"You had better watch your tongue, or I'll retire and force _you_ to do all of this," she snaps.

"All right, all right; I'm sorry," he says very quickly, and she has to keep herself from smirking. "It hasn't been great at home, either."

Peggy nods sympathetically. "I heard about the Pentagon incident."

"It's not just that," Howard says. "He's just turned twenty and I'm worrying about the company being in his hands. He's irresponsible, he thinks everything's a big fat joke, and he thinks I'm the dumbest man in the world. Do you know he tried to sneak four girls into the New York house for Spring Break this year? _Four._ He thought I wouldn't notice the noises coming from the library."

"He's too smart for his own good, I expect," Peggy says. "How did you handle it?"

"Slammed the door open and threw a bucket of water on them all. Said I thought there was a cat fight going on, what with all the screeching." Howard's mustache quivers with a suppressed laugh. "Tony was so mad he didn't speak to me for a week and a half. Serves him right."

Peggy sighs. "He'll have to grow up someday. You were like that once."

"I was not," Howard protests. The look on her face stops him. "Was I?"

"Absolutely terrible," she says firmly.

"How's James?" asks Howard, probably to change the subject more than anything else.

"Oh, doing very well." At the thought of her son, Peggy brightens a little: James had quit SHIELD field work and gone back to work in environmental protection, met a lovely girl called Emily, gotten married, and had their first child on the way—and all in the space of two years. She also knew he was contracting out as hired muscle on the side for odd jobs, but he had assured her it would come to a halt before their baby was born. "Don't let anyone know, but I'm going to be a grandmother early next year."

"Grandma Peggy," says Howard, grinning. "God, when did we get so old?"

She scoffs. "Oh, please. You'll live to be a hundred, and so shall I."

"Yeah, well. Tell your husband I said hello, the next time you see him." Howard runs a hand through his hair.

Peggy inwardly flinches. She hasn't spent much time with Steve in the past two years, and she regrets that. After Sharon had been born, he'd…removed himself from the family, almost, in a jumpy, apologetic sort of way that had made everyone think he'd been experiencing some late midlife crisis. The property in Massachusetts was still well-kept, even though Steve doesn't make that his permanent home anymore, and they all like to meet there for holidays. Sarah's relocated to the New York SHIELD offices, still not married, working intelligence and getting her second history degree, to Peggy's pride. At thirty-four, she still looks ten years younger, and last Peggy heard she had gotten involved in a cross-public relations position for the DoD. Peggy's got a photo on her desk of her daughter standing next to President Bush and smiling. "I'll do that," she says quietly.

Howard sits down rather heavily in her guest chair. "Where did the time go?" he asks, as much to himself as to her.

"Past us. As it must." Peggy leans down to look at the files on her desk, neatly organized in alphabetical order: a name sticks out in the W's and she means to take a look. "That situation in Africa—I've been asked by the delegation from the country that was affected most to help track down a—Klaue?" She knows almost nothing about the man, but some niggling feeling at the back of her mind tells her she knows someone who might.

"Oh, right. Wakanda." Howard rubs his temples. "Black-market dealer illegally enters a third-world country, steals their vibranium, gets out. Dirty work."

"How did _you_ get _your_ vibranium, Howard?" Peggy asks, eyes narrowed.

He turns red. "With the complete consent of the Ethiopians whose farm my researchers found it under, I'll have you know."

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh? Why, exactly, were you asked to stay out of the situation again? Did those Ethiopians sign a release waiver and speak with their lawyers? Did your researchers obtain a legal permit to go looking for—"

"Anyway," Howard says very loudly, "you can go right ahead on tracking Klaue down if you want to, but I'll warn you he'll be almost impossible to find. We can only bug so many phones, and it's not like we can just get an address for him."

"If only we had some sort of all-seeing eye," Peggy says with a sigh. "At any rate, I ought to get started. Can you get me all the information you can on Wakanda?"

* * *

Sarah Rogers is working her way through a sloppily-written letter postmarked from Missouri that had somehow managed to get stuck between her desk and the wall in the past year: it's dated the twelfth of November of 1988. _I am not a crazy person but I will tell you right now,_ it rambles, _that a craft like I have never seen before came down from the sky and sucked a boy up outside that hospital…_

She sighs. Responding personally to claims of alien abductions are not exactly par for the course for her workload, but there's a little time before her next meeting. Besides, there was that one person who'd called in hysterics and broken English about a Doctor Frankenstein type situation in Austria, and he'd turned out to be right, so what would it hurt to reply? Might even help someone.

Quickly, Sarah turns to her phone and dials the Records department. The tone buzzes and she hears the receiver click on. Impatiently, she asks, "Hello? Brown? Is that you?"

" _It's me,_ " says a half-breathless voice on the other end. (No longer the once-fabled Agent Eugene Brown her father had spoken so highly of: this Brown was his son, Jack, only about thirty but already sporting reading glasses like his elderly father.) " _What can I do for you, Agent?"_

"I need anything you can find on that microfilm machine about any disappearances of little boys in…" she checks the envelope again, "St. Charles, Missouri, last November."

" _Missouri? Did you get another call from a whackjob again?"_ He sounds skeptical, and she sighs.

"Maybe. I don't know. I like to answer personally and say I've done my job, okay? Just do it."

Jack sounds apologetic. " _Right. Sorry. I'll call you as soon as I have an answer."_ The receiver clicks down.

Sarah leans back in her seat and looks at the letter again. The writer hadn't said "a UFO" or "an alien spaceship" and that's odd for a typical letter of the kind that come across her desk. Handling people who have seen things they're not supposed to comes with patterns that she can pick out by now as easily as a stitch line in a sweater, and this one stands out. _Like Austria_ , she muses in silence, and taps her pen against the desk absently as she thinks.

* * *

The wide open spaces of upstate Vermont feel more like home to Steve than Massachusetts ever had. Apart from the fact that he's finally away from Boston, the crisp air and glowing sky remind him of something he hasn't experienced in quite a while, although he can't quite put his finger on it.

Ah. The Avengers complex, that building that had once been a warehouse, that's likely a warehouse right now, and that had been left alone for decades before Tony had refurbished it into a home base: _that_ is what Vermont puts him in mind of. Green grass, the gently blowing trees, the clean air and lakes—

— _the concrete dust in his mouth, blood, the walls imploding into shards as the building came down on his head, voices screaming in his ears in the split second before consciousness fled him—_

His fingers instinctively curl around the handle of the lawnmower and the metal creaks in protest. Steve's fingers fly open, and the mower grumbles to a stop, the dead man's switch releasing. There are blisters simmering under the base of his fingers, but he doesn't even feel them, or hear the cacophony of insects buzzing in the silence the mower left behind.

_His fingers, wrapped around the handle of a hammer forged a universe away: the heft and weight of it as he threw and caught it, lightning crackling at his fingertips and coursing through his body—_

_­_ The moment passes. Steve's hands come to rest on the metal bar again, his blisters smarting and sweat trickling down his back under his yardwork shirt. "It's nineteen eighty-nine," he says aloud, mopping his forehead. "Another Republican is President, you've gotta get this yard cleaned up, and…"

 _And once you wielded the power of the gods,_ a little voice says in the back of his head.

Steve starts the mower again and keeps pushing. Being out here reminds him of the last day, _that_ last day, the day he stepped onto that platform in the woods by the lake and said his goodbyes. It's been decades for him, but he can still see their faces so clearly: Sam's face, Bucky's face, Banner's. Where had he put his nanosuit? It was probably stuffed into one of the boxes in the attic at the Massachusetts house, under old Christmas decorations and dust. The idea had kept popping into his head as he worked: _the world still needs a Captain America_ , and with Peggy retiring from field work to focus on her duties as a Director, Sarah going off to work intelligence and James starting a family, there weren't many options left in his immediate relations to do the job.

And Bucky—Steve's heart clenches under his ribs and a lump in his throat threatens to choke him, as it usually does when he thinks of Bucky. _It's my fault,_ he thinks, finishing the last strip of long grass and letting the mower idle off again. _I couldn't save him._ Twin memories of Bucky war in his mind's eye: the smiling, tired-looking man with the beard and long hair in the black jacket, and the clean-shaven man who had hugged him goodbye two years ago at the last Fourth of July barbecue where they'd all been together as a family, promising to be back for the Labor Day cookout and ribbing him about the kids, hand-in-hand with Nat.

Two Buckys. Two Steves, too: one still sleeping beneath the Greenland ice shelf and the other one him, with summer heat baking his back and the smell of fresh-cut grass filling his mouth.

 _They won't have a Cap,_ he thinks, putting the mower away and heading back into the house. Smaller than the Massachusetts place, but still cozy: this is more _his_ place than any other place he's lived, with the paints and pencils lined up neatly how he likes them and the kitchen arranged how he likes it and the living room still sporting a record player even though James has teased him about it. The bedroom is how he likes it, too: a queen-sized wrought-iron frame covered in plenty of quilts and pillows. There's really only one important factor missing from the bedroom, but he can't do much about that.

As Steve is pulling off his soaked shirt, the phone in the kitchen rings. Only a few people have this number, namely all his immediate family and Howard Stark, so he hurries over to it, tossing his shirt over his shoulder as he picks up. "Hello?" he asks, tucking the phone under his chin as he reaches for a pad of paper and a pencil automatically in case it's something urgent.

" _Hello,"_ says his favorite voice in the whole world, crisp and clear. " _I'd like a reservation for dinner tonight? I hear your cornbread is the best on the coast."_

He almost chokes, but quickly plays along. Corn had _ears_ , and _ears_ meant the line might not be secure. "Of course, ma'am," he says, reaching up to hold the receiver. "We have a seven-thirty slot open, if that's acceptable."

Peggy sounds very businesslike. " _Absolutely, thank you. The last name is Carter. Good evening."_

The phone clicks down, and Steve freezes like a deer for a moment before he begins the process of frantically cleaning every surface in sight.

* * *

Peggy briskly steps up the walk to Steve's front door, stepping around a pair of garden shears in the path, and smiles to herself. Wearing jeans is still just a tad over-casual for her, and brings back memories of Wild West serials, but the pair she chose from the Gap are comfortable and sturdy and go nicely with the navy and white striped T-shirt she chose to go with it. An outing to the country had called for country clothes, and as she lifts one loafered foot over the step to the porch, she can hear the screen door creaking open, and looks up.

Steve's standing there, hair gone nearly entirely silver. Both sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and he looks worried, or maybe concerned, but as his eyes find her he smiles and his eyes crease into a spiderweb of laugh lines. "Hi," he says simply, standing aside and holding the door for her.

"Hello," she says, almost breathless as she squeezes past him. They haven't seen each other in nearly two years, apart from Christmas dinner at the family farm last year, and even then it had only been dinner and a quick kiss before she had had to rush back into work for some emergency. The smell of meatloaf and potatoes wafts through the small living room, and the table is set for two.

Steve follows her in as he shuts the door. "Hope you're hungry," he remarks, and she notes that his voice has begun to go soft around the edges, like old leather.

"Strangely, lately I find myself a bit more…as I used to be," she says, letting him pull out her chair for her. "Are you?"

"No," he says, sitting across from her with a small smile. "Still running hot over here. You're not getting sick, are you? You're not—I mean, I don't ever get sick, do you—"

"No, I had the flu last year," she informs him, looking down into her plate. "I suppose the serum's wearing off."

"Well, nobody ever came close to Erskine's formula," says Steve, serving her a regular-sized portion of meatloaf and some roasted small potatoes. There's also a platter of green beans, and she eagerly takes some of those; whatever she does, she cannot replicate his recipe for green beans. "I guess it was inevitable."

"Speaking of inevitable," says Peggy, chewing her food and swallowing first, "I thought I ought to come by and ask you a favor."

"Hmm?"

"What do you know about a place called Wakanda or a man called Klaue?"

Steve almost chokes on his food. "Why are you asking?"

"There's been a little skirmish about some stolen vibranium. The UN is asking me to find this Klaue fellow. Don't suppose you'd know where he is?"

Steve pushes his food around on his plate. "I don't," he confesses. "But I might know a little more about Wakanda than you might think."

"So you'll help me?" She almost leans across the table.

"Depends." He sips his glass of water.

"On what?"

"On whether or not you plan on staying the night."

"Extortion," Peggy says, eyes narrowed, but unable to hide the smile threatening to burst out of her face. "One might think you actually missed your wife."

"I _do_ ," he says, looking wounded, and goes back to pushing his green beans around with a fork. Peggy doesn't say anything at all. The Sharon issue hangs between them in the air like a tangible fog: he hasn't been in her bed since their great-niece was born. "It was a bad joke," he says finally, looking up. "Of course I'll help you, no matter the—"

Peggy stands abruptly, making him jump. "I'm not going to compete with the memory of a grown woman who doesn't exist right now," she says firmly. "I'm your wife. I want you to treat me like your wife."

Steve swallows, hesitating for a moment, and then he stands, the food forgotten for once. "Okay," he says. "Bedroom's—it's down the hall."

"I'm taking a shower first," she informs him.

"I—right," he says, and watches her go, eyes glued to her as she moves down the hall.

* * *

"I've got that missing person case you wanted," says Jack Brown, proudly setting a folder down on Sarah's desk. "Three missing boys between the ages of seven and eleven, all from the same area in Missouri, same time frame."

Sarah grabs them up. It's late, and she should be home, but this is—"Perfect. Let's see." The newspaper clippings range from a long editorial to a mere ad for a HAVE YOU SEEN ME? style poster to a one-paragraph blurb in a local paper. Three boys: Mike, Peter, Charlie. Mike left behind a large family, Peter only a grandfather, and Charlie a foster home. Sarah combs the articles more thoroughly. _Vanished from a hospital…_ Mike had gone missing at a bus stop, Charlie had last been seen walking to a friend's home, but Peter—Peter had vanished out of thin air the night his mother had died of brain cancer, right under the noses of everyone at… St. Joseph's Hospital.

She snatches up the letter again. _Sucked a boy up outside that hospital._ "Got him," she says, startling Jack, who's been standing there the whole time.

"Got him?" he echoes.

"Yes." She taps the paper. "This kid. Peter Jason—Quill? He's the one, the one this person saw go missing. They say he was abducted by aliens. He _did_ go missing outside a hospital. Just like the author said."

Jack frowns. "So it's a coincidence."

Sarah chews her lip. "It's something. I don't know. It feels weird. I'm going to sit on it."

"Would—" Jack's an awkward guy, over six feet tall with broad shoulders and shaggy dark hair; when he takes off his reading glasses they look too small for his big hands. "Don't suppose you'd want to sit on it over, um, dinner?"

"Dinner?" she echoes, baffled.

His color deepens. "Or—or drinks? If that's what you—I mean—"

"Oh. _Oh_." Sarah blinks, retroactively putting together every single one of their interaction in the past six months: Jack jumping to get her anything she needed, Jack bending over backward to find her some obscure print article or advertisement from the forties. She had thought he was just a really dedicated agent. But—

"I'm sorry," he stammers, half-falling over himself to backtrack. "I'm sorry, it's not professional, it's a—"

"What? No. It's—I'm trying to figure out what _it_ is, just give me a—"

His mouth snaps shut and he stands there sheepishly, ears turning pink, while she considers her options. She's definitely not inexperienced with sex, having tried all that in college, but getting serious with someone just… hasn't been on her list of Absolutely Must Do's. At least, not yet. Not with the last few failed dates, where the guys just turned out to be jerks who wanted to get in her pants so they could have I Banged Captain America's Daughter bragging rights. But, come to think of it, she _is_ in her mid-thirties. _You can't put that off forever if you think you might want to do it,_ she chides herself silently. A family of her own: Dad could have a whole house full of grandkids. She almost gets a little misty-eyed thinking about it. _Those are your hormones, dummy. You have a career to work on._ But hadn't Mom done both, and pretty well? What was the right choice here?

Poor, unsuspecting Jack Brown just stands there, oblivious to the maelstrom of emotion coursing through the woman standing in front of him. "Is it… good?" he ventures.

"I—" Sarah swallows. "Let me finish what I'm doing here for a moment, and I'll—I'll meet you in the lobby in ten. And—and you can decide where we go to dinner."

"So—so dinner," Jack says, half to himself. "Okay. Great. _Great._ "

"And—and if you try to put your hand up my dress, I'll kick your ass."

He looks shocked. That's enough confirmation for her that he'll behave, and she goes back to her newspaper clippings.

* * *

The bedroom in the cabin in Vermont is small and cozy and smells like cedar. Peggy lies on her side, her skin drenched in warmth, and watches her husband's chest rise and fall.

His body has still clung to muscle, but he's lost a bit of mass in his shoulders and chest. It's not enough to be directly noticeable to anyone else but her, and his body hair has gone silver like his head. This is the first time he's looked old to her, and she wonders if he thinks she looks the same. Then again, she wonders, did the absence of him give her fresh eyes? Would she still think he'd aged if she had seen him every day of the last two years?

Steve, drowsing, turns to look at her, one hand splayed out on his still-flat belly. "Hey," he says sleepily, smiling.

"Hi," she whispers.

"Not sleepy?"

"Not yet." She could sleep, if she wanted to, but she doesn't yet. She wants to stay awake and look at her husband for a good long time, so she'll never forget him. "Do I look old?"

One blue eye slits open. "That's a trick question, isn't it?"

Peggy laughs. "No! Just tell me. Do I?"

Steve sighs deeply and heaves himself up on one arm, looking over her body as if he's judging a car, or maybe a racehorse. "Mmm. No. Middle-aged. Comfortable. Still got plenty of brown in your hair, and…" One hand trails across her arm. "Good form."

"I _am_ technically a decade younger than you," she reminds him.

"Right." He kisses her on the nose. "Because _that's_ why you look so good for almost seventy."

She smiles, but it fades. "I did want to ask you… do you think that possibly there could be, ah, late-term side effects of that Russian serum?"

He's immediately concerned, his eyes sharp and focused. "Maybe. Why do you ask?"

"Because—oh, it's silly." She huffs air through her nose. "I keep having these moments where I walk into a room and forget entirely what I was going in for, and it took me almost a minute to recall Agent Braddock's phone number the other day. I know it could be nothing, but I'm just—I'm worried."

Something passes across Steve's face, but he shakes his head. "Nah. Don't worry about it. You're only sixty-eight. You've had a long life, and we're all bound to forget things at some point. The other day I couldn't find my reading glasses and they were on my head the whole time."

Peggy chuckles and moves in closer, pressing her body to his, but pulls back quickly. "Oh, and I ought to tell you. Natasha Romanoff has gone off the grid. Managed to escape our agents. We think she might be somewhere in Europe, but we don't know for sure."

"Sounds like her," Steve muses. "I know losing—losing Bucky was hard for her, too."

"Maybe she's trying to track him down. I don't know. If she persists in being AWOL we have a team ready to track her down—"

"I'd wait," says Steve. "Don't send anyone after her just yet. She needs time."

"Mmm," says Peggy, resting her head on his shoulder.

"You know what? I think I will go to Wakanda after all," he says, wrapping one arm around her shoulders. "You've got enough to deal with."

"You're a saint," she says, relaxing. "In the morning we can head back to the Triskelion and get you set up and sent out. Don't worry about a thing."

"Oh, I won't," he says, and kisses her on the head as she drifts off.

* * *

Sarah Rogers is actually _enjoying herself_ on a date, and that's never happened before in her life. Jack is… _nice,_ he's funny and quiet and polite to the staff at the restaurant he picked, and he keeps his hands to himself. They talk about work at first, and after that it goes to family. Jack's mother is a retired historian his father met later in life, who's a good decade younger than her husband and whose dark hair and eyes Jack inherited: he has a younger brother named Joe who left the Army, got married, has two kids, and works for the police department and Sarah gets the distinct feeling Jack's felt as if he's in his younger brother's shadow for a while. She shares her own family information, but doesn't get too detailed: if he's one of those "Cap's daughter" weirdos he'll have to dig at her some more.

She suggests a drink after, and he's amiable, so they head to the closest club and after a drink or two, he's cheerfully spinning her around on the dance floor, laughing at her as she attempts to shimmy like Madonna. Sarah doesn't even care that she's still in her work clothes: he's big and warm and careful with her and even though alcohol doesn't do anything to her at all she's suddenly finding herself a little open to the idea of maybe, just maybe, hooking up. Maybe.

"This place have an upstairs?" she shouts into his ear over the thumping stereo.

"Yeah!" he yells back, and after some shuffling and bumping they make it off and into the relative quiet of the lounge up the back stairs.

She recognizes two of the men sitting in there at the coffee table. They're a couple of defense contractors she just met with this past week in the Oval Office to discuss the optics of arming the police in DC to continue the War on Drugs, and both of them are hunched over, snorting cocaine off the glass-topped table.

One looks up and sees her, his eyes hugely dilated. "Holy shit," he mutters, elbowing his partner, who also looks up, nose bleeding.

"Agent Rogers?" he asks, blinking.

Rage curls somewhere in the pit of her stomach. "You get the fuck out of this room and take your crack with you," she spits.

They don't need to be told twice. They gather up their shit and they go, not even bothering to wipe down the residue on the table. Sarah kicks the door shut after them and buries both her hands in her hair. The sheer injustice of the thing bites her deep: going after poor neighborhoods for drugs when the rich in power are doing the same thing? Who _does_ that?

"Sarah?" asks Jack, hesitantly.

She lets out a roar and punches the door so hard it cracks, then turns to Jack. "It's not fair," she says, almost hopping mad, like a Looney Tunes character. "Those assholes—do you know who they are? They just agreed to give cops in DC SWAT gear to take down _crack houses_ , and they're up here doing the same goddamn—"

"It's bullshit," agrees Jack, and she's a little surprised at the language coming from him, when he's usually so mild-mannered. "And it's—it's racist and I don't care who gets mad about me saying so. Everyone on the news talks about welfare queens and crack addicts and they're always some caricature of a black woman with eight kids and no husband."

"You're goddamn right," she says, fired up. "It's a bunch of bullshit." She takes a step closer. "Every day I ask myself _why_ I'm in this job, and I guess I keep telling myself that I can work inside it to make things better, but I'm just—I'm just one person. I can't fix everything. I don't mean anything."

Jack takes a step closer to her. "You mean something to me," he says, so sincerely that she thinks her heart might break, and before she knows what's happening she's got him by the shoulders and her mouth is pressed to his and he tastes like the whiskey he nursed before coming up here. Both big hands tremble on her waist as they find their way behind her, clasping her tight. _Oh, my God,_ she thinks, heart pounding in excitement as his mouth clumsily opens hers and he backs her into the wall. He should have been a linebacker, not an archivist: what does he _do_ for fun? Wrestle bears?

Her hands slide down his back a little too roughly, and he grunts. "Sorry," Sarah gasps. When had the room become so warm?

"No, I'm—is this okay?" Jack pulls away briefly, looking into her eyes. "Are you—"

"Yes, let's just, ah, um, get on the—couch—"

"I wouldn't put my ass on that couch," he says somberly, which makes her laugh.

"Okay. Floor." She tugs him by the collar, and he comes eagerly, following her down and bracing himself over her. She's fumbling with the buttons on her shirt, and his eyes are glued to her face like she's the most interesting thing he's ever seen as he sits back to mess with his belt and struggle with his fly.

The door smashes open with a bang loud enough to split the muffled, thudding music playing downstairs, and six armed police officers swarm in, barking things like _Police!_ and _Stop!_ and _Hands in the air!_

Sarah reacts on pure instinct, dredged up from her years on a SHIELD tactical team. One arm flings Jack to the side and she covers him, grabbing the heavy glass table and throwing it down to make a barrier between them and the police. "We're government agents!" she bellows, ripping her ID out and flashing it.

"I said, hands in the air!" screams the foremost officer, clad in heavy black tac gear and pointing a gun at her head.

Jack flings his hands up apologetically and shoots her a horrified look as she continues to wave her identification around. "Sarah—"

She ignores him. "I'm Agent Sarah Rogers, I work for the Department of Defense—"

Out of the corner of her eye, a black shape moves. Sarah has just enough time to turn her head and see that one of the officers is attempting a tackle, and it's the simplest thing in the world to automatically sidestep, throw him down with his own momentum, and—

Gunfire erupts. A streak of agony courses through Sarah's left thigh, and she falls, toppling over Jack, thinking, _God, I really fucked it up this time._

* * *

The early morning sunlight washes the kitchen in gold and rose as Peggy sits at her husband's kitchen table, making notes and preparing to arrange the drive to the Triskelion. She's only wearing one of Steve's old flannel shirts, which is big enough to reach her thighs, and the chair is digging into the soft flesh of her bare legs. "Ought to put some coffee on," she mutters to herself.

Steve shifts his position over in the nook with the paper. "Don't worry," he says. "I'll get it."

She smiles up at him as he gets up to go start the coffee. "Bags already packed?"

"Yup. First thing this morning." Steve sneaks an appreciative glance at her legs sticking out of his shirt as she crosses them.

"I do wish you could tell me just a _bit_ about Wakanda," Peggy says, chewing at her lip as she looks over her list of notes.  A moment later, she jumps, startled, when the phone rings right behind her on the wall. "Lord," she grumbles, and waves Steve off as he makes to get it. "No, I'll get it, you do the coffee." She picks up the phone. "Hello?"

Steve tilts his head and tries to listen, but can't quite hear the voice on the other end. His wife certainly can, though.

"Sarah?" Peggy drops her pen and crushes the receiver to her ear. "Darling, are you all right?"

"What's wrong with Sarah?" whispers Steve, half-miming as she waves him off impatiently and her eyes go wide.

"Arrested?!" Peggy half-shouts, and snatches up the pen again. "Where? Where are you and what on earth did you _do_?"

" _What_?" Steve says, at a normal volume, which makes Peggy wave at him with her eyebrows connected in the front as she scribbles down notes on her paper.

"Metropolitan Headquarters? Got it. Yes, the one on Indiana Avenue." She tilts the receiver away from her chin and directs her next sentence at Steve. "I'm going to get her and I need to call you a jet. Talk to her while I get my phone out of the car."

"You have a phone in your car?" Steve asks, incredulous, but then the receiver's being shoved into his hands, Peggy's heading to the front door, and he's listening to his daughter on the other end, her voice gone shaky and unsure.

" _Dad?"_ she asks. " _Is that you?"_

"Hey, Sarah-bear," he says gently, watching Peggy rush out of the front door in nothing but his shirt. "It sure is. What happened?"

" _I'm—I was out on a date with Jack Brown, and we found some military contractors doing drugs in the club we were at, and I guess they called the cops to tell them we were in there with the drugs, because the next thing we knew the SWAT team was knocking down the door and I—I got shot."_

"You got shot?" Steve's fingers tighten on the receiver. "Are you okay?"

" _Yeah, they took me to the hospital and cuffed me to a bed so they could treat me once they found out I was a DOD employee, and after that I got moved to the station. Jack's still here. Nobody's bailed him out yet. They told us someone anonymously called in a tip, and I told the police and the doctors at the hospital to drug test both of us. The hospital won't do it without a warrant and the cops won't give the warrant."_ She sounds like she's on the verge of tears.

Steve sighs. "How much is the bail?"

" _Five thousand. I'm so sorry."_

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault. Although if you're planning to, um, go on dates, maybe the closest club isn't the best option for future reference. Your mom—" he's interrupted by Peggy flying back in and wielding a massive block of a phone with a detachable antenna— "um, she's going to come get you out."

" _You're not coming?_ "

He winces. "I—no, honey. I have to go to Africa as a favor for Mom."

" _Dad, please just come get me. If Mom comes, it's going to be a lecture about how I should have been smarter and I don't want to sit through an hour of that on the freeway—"_

"Sarah, I don't exactly have a choice right now."

" _I haven't seen you since Christmas and you won't even come bail me out of jail?"_

Okay, that stings to the quick. "I already agreed to help Mom out with something important. She's coming to get you, and I can talk to her about being a little more understanding, but—"

Sarah sounds like she really is in tears. " _More important than me?"_

Steve shuts his eyes. She had called _his_ house, not Peggy's: he'd been her first choice when faced with a dire situation and he couldn't help her. "I'm sorry. I have to go." Peggy is waving at him, pantomiming a plane with both hands as her enormous satellite phone is wedged under her chin. "I'll see you when I get back. I promise."

" _Daddy—"_

There's a rough male voice on the other end and the line goes dead. Steve puts the phone back into the cradle.

* * *

 _Cold._ Cold, cold water, rushing across his body, loosening the ice at wrist and thigh, _cold._

He screams, and he falls out of the coffin face-first, unable to stop himself from landing on his cheek. His arms don't work, and he writhes there for a moment, shaking and blue with cold, until another wash of water soaks him from head to toe, but this water is hot and steaming, and he curls in on himself, trying to save the warmth.

He is not dead. That is bad, but he can't remember why.

"Up," commands a rough male voice, and he's dragged to his feet by his hair to face another man. He recognizes the red beret, the green fatigues: Karpov, his commander. He knows this man, and he relaxes. Karpov is always polite, never cruel for the sake of being cruel, and more importantly, he knows the book in Karpov's hand. His eyes look for Belova, but she is not there.

He is put into the chair, and white-hot pain courses through his head.

Karpov says the words.

He listens, and he remembers how they tell him to go quiet inside, to forget and listen and obey orders, so he does as the words say, and when Karpov is done, he waits.

" _Dobroye utro, Soldat."_

 _"Gotovy soblyudat,"_ he responds, as he always does.

His mission today is to train with a team of handpicked Soldiers, people like himself, chosen from the Widows, chosen from Hydra. None of them are as good as he is, not yet. Something is still waiting to be done, but it is not his place to ask what. As he enters the room where he is to train, he sees a woman among the ten, against the wall with the rest.

She is tall and blonde, and at first he thinks he knows her, but after a second look he knows he has never seen her before. She has strong, chiseled features and a thin hard mouth. He evaluates the lineup. Four women: the blonde one, two with brown hair, and a redhead—six men, two dark-haired like him and four with light hair. All ten of them are well-muscled and on high alert, watching him as he stands silently, both hands resting at his side, the one of flesh and the one of cold metal.

He begins to clench his left fist, to attack, and one of the dark-haired women hears the arm before he moves, somehow sensing the machinations inside that he cannot mask, and she's on top of him, beating, punching, fighting for her life. He fights back as only he can.

The Soldier feels the smallest pang of regret as she dodges too slowly and he lifts her by the throat with his metal fist, choking the life from her as her mouth turns blue and her eyes roll back. She is dead by the time she hits the floor.

 _She would have been a good Soldier if she had been quicker,_ he thinks, and stands again, looking at the rest. Nine. _Only the best will come out alive._

The men all come next, and he kills all but four, then waits with heaving chest and sweat-soaked hair for the other women to advance.

The blonde woman narrows her eyes and charges him. He cannot keep up with the power of her movements, and after a desperate struggle on the floor where he's sure she'll kill him, he pins her down and nods to Karpov, who nods back, and he releases her. She stands and walks to the wall with the others.

Next, the other dark-haired woman, who struggles and struggles, but whose fear he can sense as he wrangles her on the ground, and with a quick jerk of his hands her neck is broken, mercifully quickly. _I was not ordered to make them suffer,_ he thinks, as two orderlies drag her limp body away. Finally, the red-haired woman is up, and she holds a steady stance as she faces him down. Her hair is half-loose, and floats around her face, and something about it is—

_His legs, entwined with hers on a bed, a record player on in the background_

_brushing her hair in the bathroom the light shining copper on all of it_

_laughing holding a cup to her mouth_

He shakes his head, disturbed at this intrusion of memories he knows he does not have. The woman takes advantage of his momentary distraction and charges, slamming into his belly. He grunts, and she gets him against the wall, furiously fighting for her life as he grapples with her.

One missed block, and his metal fingers shred the skin on her neck into bloody ribbons. She chokes, startled and in pain, and stares up at him with big brown eyes, but she never speaks a word, and the Soldier lifts her in the air and flings her to the ground. Something inside her body cracks like wood, and she cries out before he straddles her and throws her into a chokehold, sudden rage building inside him like nothing he's felt before. He roars out incomprehensible syllables, spittle flying from his mouth, and Karpov even takes a step back from the scene before the red-headed woman goes limp and dead.

It takes him a moment to collect himself, but he does, and stands, viewing the corpse dispassionately as it's pulled away. " _Missiya vypolnena_ ," he says to Karpov.

Karpov acknowledges his words with a nod and steps aside to call someone. The Soldier stands and waits for orders, but instead doctors enter the room: he knows they are doctors because of the red cross on their arms. Karpov mutters a few words to them while giving him sideways looks. Dread grows like a weed in his belly as they approach, and they take him away.

They're taking him back to the chair. He lets himself be dragged, and although he doesn't know why, he turns and asks the closest doctor as they're strapping him in, "What was the red-haired one's name?"

The doctor blinks, as surprised at the question being in English as the Soldier is, but responds in kind. "Irena."

 _That's good,_ thinks the Soldier, but he doesn't know why, or why he's relieved until the chair pulls him back and the pain comes back and wipes away everything: the training, the mission, the woman with red hair, Karpov's words, relief, fear—it is all just agony until he sags lifelessly and the world goes away for a while.

* * *

The north end of Lake Turkana looks as remote as an alien world. Volcanic rock and salt make up the ground: heat shimmers across the rocky ground. The salt of the green lake crusts the edge of the water, leaving it white and thick.

A single man walks, a pack on his back, across the ground. He's wearing light clothes for the climate, and he checks his watch periodically as he goes. He reaches some invisible point and stops, just at the edge of the lake, before taking a deep breath, stepping forward, and—

The edges of reality curl and fracture into violet hexagons around him, and he disappears as the world reintegrates itself on the edge of the lake. There is only the jade-green water, the salt, and the heat baking the volcanic stone.

* * *

"My king, we have a disturbance on the outer edge of the field," says Akunna, her spear as perfectly straight and tall as she is. "A single outsider has found his way in and been apprehended by the Border Tribe. He claims he is here on a mission and knows about Klaue. What shall be done?"

"A single outsider?" T'Chaka stands from his throne. He activates his Kimoyo beads and Akunna shares her own images to him, sent by the Border Tribe to her: a single, near-elderly white man with a rucksack and a gentle face float above their wrists. The king frowns. "This is not a thief or a poacher. He is too old. How did he get in?"

"The Border Tribe says he knew where the field was and walked right though without any fear. He is not afraid of them, or even of the beads." Akunna looks unsettled. "He asked to be taken to the Citadel, as if he knew where it was already."

"Baba, can I see?" asks the prince, skidding into the room on the soles of his shoes. "What man? Who is it?"

Ramonda follows behind, looking exasperated. "T'Challa! How many times must I tell you? Do not burst in on your father's court!"

T'Challa sighs. "But Mama, I want to _see_!"

"Leave him be, Ramonda. And I do not know yet, T'Challa," says T'Chaka. "Here." He shows his son the image, and the young boy frowns as his parents look at each other over the top of his head.

"He looks tired. Can we bring him here?"

T'Chaka smiles and pats his son on the head. "That he does, and perhaps that is a good idea. Well, Akunna, tell the Border Tribe to bring him here immediately. I will question this man, offer him shelter, and decide what should be done."

* * *

Steve walks in, flanked by the two Dora Milaje who had been sent to escort him back to the Golden City and blinks in the golden sunshine pouring through the enormous window of the throne room. King T'Chaka sits on the throne, with Ramonda beside him and a young boy of maybe eight at her side—

 _That's T'Challa._ Steve almost feels dizzy from it, but manages to stay on his feet until he makes it to the chair someone thoughtfully left facing the throne. The Dora Milaje stand at his sides.

T'Chaka strokes his beard with a finger. "No outsider has entered Wakanda in thousands of years. Explain how you came to be here," he says calmly.

"I was sent by the Strategic—"

"We do not care who sent you," interrupts another one of the Dora Milaje.

"Peace, Ogechi," says T'Chaka.

" _Andikhubeki_ ," says Steve, making every pair of eyebrows in the room go up. " _Ngenye imini, ndiza kuza kwakhona, kodwa iya kuba lixesha lam lokuqala."_

Silence falls over the room. "You speak in riddles," says Ramonda.

"I have been here before, but not for you," says Steve. "Another king greeted me then." His eyes linger a brief moment on T'Challa, and only Ramonda seems to see it.

"You could not have come in the days of my father," says T'Chaka. "My grandfather?"

"How old are you?" pipes up little T'Challa with great interest. "A hundred?"

Steve smiles. "More than that."

"You have seen the glory of the Golden City and of Wakanda. You cannot be allowed to leave," says T'Chaka. "If outsiders know—"

"I have seen it before, and that did not make all outsiders know," says Steve. "I'm an old man, King T'Chaka. I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut."

"What do you know of the thief Klaue?"

"I can help you try to track him down, but you will not find him in your lifetime." Steve sits back, tired. "But in your son's lifetime, he'll be returned to Wakanda in pieces."

Ramonda glances at her husband, shock written across her face as he leans forward. "Impossible. You speak of knowing the future. No man can know that."

"No, no man knows all of the future," Steve agrees.

T'Chaka frowns. "What is your name?"

"Steve Rogers."

"Rogers?" The king's face breaks into a near-caricature of astonishment. "Not Captain America, of whom I heard so much about as a boy?"

"The very same."

A huge smile splits T'Chaka's beard, and he stands, leaves the throne, and walks toward him, hands out. "My father would have had me hung by my toes if he had ever found my collection of American comic books, but he always used to say that if there was one outsider we might trust, it was Captain America, whose strength rivaled that of the Black Panther."

"Not for some years, I'm afraid," says Steve modestly, but nevertheless he finds himself stuck in a warm, tight hug, and T'Chaka turns to the Dora Milaje.

"You will make sure this man is accommodated within the Citadel and protected. We have much to speak of tomorrow."

* * *

The people of the Golden City whisper among themselves that there is an outsider, a white man, living in the Citadel with the royal family. A light is often on in King T'Chaka's rooms past midnight, and some claim to have seen the man with their own eyes, a glint of sun on silver hair as he walks on the balconies and bridges. Messages are passed between Kimoyo beads, friend to friend, wife to husband: _where does he come from? Who is he? What does he want? Why does the King entertain him so?_

Of course, they never find out, and soon forget the rumors over time as if they'd never happened, as people do—but a silver-haired man still walks in the gardens of the Citadel at night.

* * *

"There is one thing I would ask of you as a favor," Steve says, the week he is to leave.

"Anything, my friend," says T'Chaka.

Steve hands him a piece of paper with a sketch on it. "Just this."

T'Chaka inspects it. "All of vibranium?"

"If that's possible. It's a gift for a friend."

"I understand." T'Chaka folds the paper reverently and put it in his pocket. "I'll send this to the Design Board. It will be done."

"Thank you, my friend."

* * *

The cool November air drifts through the screen door of the farmhouse in Massachusetts, the golden sunshine soaking the living room floor in warm patches. Sarah's in the kitchen mashing potatoes and making whipped cream simultaneously and fervently checking the Fannie Farmer cookbook while Emily sits with her feet up on the sofa, protesting every time she tries to stand and James frantically rushes out of the kitchen, sits her back down, and offers to bring her a drink or a snack or another pillow. "I'm not even that pregnant yet!" she says, exasperated.

"The doctor said you needed  _rest!_ Your blood pressure is high."

"Jamie, I'm fine!"

Peggy is entertaining baby Sharon, who's walking, talking, and a tornado on two legs, her fluff of blond hair falling over her eyes as she squeals and evades capture in her pink and white checked pinafore. Anna is going back and forth between setting the table in the dining room and checking on the pies while James checks the turkey. It's familial chaos, and in the middle of it all there's a knock on the door. Sarah rips her apron off and runs to the door, hoping it's Jack: he was supposed to be here half an hour ago with his parents and she's been worried sick.

There are two shapes on the doorstep, and she opens it with a wide smile. Jack is wearing a sweater and khakis, and looks very put-together: his mother is slender and tall with a silver streak in her dark hair and wearing a nice blouse and a pair of trousers. She has a beauty mark high on her right cheekbone, and can't be a day over fifty. In her hands she cradles a white Corningware with blue cornflowers on the sides. "Afternoon," she says warmly.

"Oh—Mrs. Brown, it's so nice to meet you." Sarah wipes her hands belatedly on her pants, inwardly cringing as she remembers the powdered sugar. "I—I was making whipped cream."

"Sorry we're late. Traffic was a nightmare." Jack awkwardly hugs her, still shy in front of people. "Dad would have come, but he decided not to at the last minute. His emphysema is acting up again."

Sarah blinks. "Oh—I'm so sorry to hear that. Won't you come in?"

Mrs. Brown smiles. Her teeth are very white: she's either never smoked in her life, or she has a bridge. Sarah wonders which it is. "Certainly. Oh, and I brought a green-bean casserole. I hope that won't be an imposition, but I just couldn't come to a Thanksgiving dinner without something in hand."

"Of course not! I think that's actually the one thing we didn't make." Sarah offers a smile back. "We can put it on the table. It's—"

"Sarah?" says a voice from the yard she knows as well as her mother's.

_Daddy._

The blood drains from her face and she turns, cold-cheeked, to see her father, standing in the middle of the yard with his old car coat on and holding a dusty backpack and some enormous—a cymbal case? A leather circular case with a handle, at any rate, and he's looking up at her with an expression on his face that she can't read in the slightest. "Dad?" she whispers.

"You must be Mr. Rogers," says Mrs. Brown, shoving the Corningware into Jack's hands and marching back down the steps with a determination to be polite. "A pleasure."

Steve shakes her hand and looks up at the porch. "You must be Jack."

"Yes, sir," says Jack, looking rather like a deer in headlights. "Nice—nice to meet you. Sir."

"Your dad doing okay?"

Sarah's stuck to the porch. She can't move an inch as her boyfriend and her boyfriend's mom and her _father_ who she hadn't expected to see _at all_ have a conversation. _Move!_ she yells silently at her feet.

"Emphysema, sir. Couldn't make it."

Steve shakes his head. "Sorry to hear it."

"I told him to quit smoking," says Mrs. Brown quietly, and a shadow of regret crosses her face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't—"

"Ah, old men never listen to anyone who knows better," Steve says. "I oughta know." That makes her smile, and Jack, sensing the tension, steps down the first step.

"Mom, let's go in and let Sarah and her dad catch up. I'll introduce you to Director Carter."

"Oh, of course. Well. Nice to meet you, Mr. Rogers." Mrs. Brown waves her fingers and steps back up the porch steps, and then they're both inside the house and Sarah's standing there in the sunshine, powdered sugar on her slacks, staring at her father, who's never looked so old.

"Hi, sweetie," he says after a moment.

"Where—where have you been?" she croaks, finally able to talk. "It's been months. Mom didn't even _care,_ and I didn't know anything—"

"Sorry, honey. I was in Africa." He steps up, and hands her the cymbal case: it's lighter than it looks, and she clutches it while he slips his backpack off. "How are things going?"

A sob catches in her throat. "Oh, you know. Sharon's in toddler stage and wrecking everything, James and Emily are having their baby in the spring, and I'm the sad single kid who can't even go on a date without getting arrested."

"You're not a kid. You're thirty-four," he says patiently.

"That's _not helping,_ Dad."

"I'm sorry I couldn't bail you out. Was Mom that bad?"

Sarah wipes her eyes. "No. She got all preachy about drugs and how I need to avoid any appearance of anything bad until it blows over, and then I threatened to jump out of the moving car on the 395, and after that she stopped."

"Anything come of it?"

She shakes her head. "No. Those jackasses who left the drugs and called the cops were pretty high and mighty about it at the next joint meeting we had with the DoD and SHIELD until I implied that the CIA might have cameras in the room. That shut them up."

He chuckles. "You really are your mother's daughter."

"Are you coming in for dinner?" she asks.

Steve sighs and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "I shouldn't," he says, half to himself. "I had a long trip."

"If you have to shower or something, we have clothes inside," she reminds him. "Come on. Don't make me meet Jack's mom all by myself."

"Oh, all right." He heads up the stairs. "You hold on to that case for me for now. Put it by the door."

"What is it?"

Steve winks at her as they both enter the house. "None of your business, that's what."

* * *

Peggy looks up from extracting her pearls out of Sharon's fat little fist at the sound of her husband's voice in the room, and smiles. "Well, hello there, darling. I was wondering if you'd show up."

"Nice of you to warn us," says James, striding up and giving his dad a hug.

"Hey, Dad!" chirps Emily, nearly immobile due to an abundance of pillows that James keeps fetching for her like a puppy. "How was your summer?"

"Oh, pretty eventful, I guess," Steve says, taking off his jacket. "Took a trip, puttered around. You know. Same old, same old."

Anna pokes her head into the room, the smell of apple pie wafting out after her. "Uncle Steve!" she calls, looking delighted. "We had no idea—"

"Let the man breathe for a moment," Peggy says, smiling as she hefts Sharon to her hip and kisses her husband on the cheek. "Go get changed and freshen up. Dinner's in thirty. And say hello to your great-niece."

Steve freezes for a second, but relaxes at the sight of Sharon, staring up with wide gray eyes at this wrinkled stranger with silvery hair. "Hi, Sharon," he says, and chucks her under the chin. She giggles and snuggles close to Peggy, one thumb jammed into her mouth, and Steve makes his retreat down the hall to the bathroom.

* * *

After dinner, after cleanup, and after Jack has departed with his mother in tow, Sarah's sitting on the back porch watching the sun go down across the back field, the deep orange light painting the tops of the autumn foliage of the trees and the cool breeze in her face.

There's a creak of the boards next to her, and she knows without speaking that her father has come. "Hey," she says, tired.

"Hi," he replies, sitting down beside her. "Jack's a good man. He's like his dad. He'll keep a secret."

"Is that your only standard? Good at keeping secrets?" Sarah tilts her head sideways. "At least he'll fit into this family." A tinge of bitterness creeps into her voice, and she closes her eyes: she hadn't meant that.

"If he can understand who you are, and love you, and be by your side, then he'll fit into this family," Steve says gently. "I know you're upset that your mom and I are living apart for now. You'll understand one day, I promise."

"I'm not upset you're living apart. I'm upset I never see you anymore. My own _dad._ James has a kid on the way and he never sees you." Sarah crosses her arms over her knees, feeling like a child. "Mom says everything happens for a reason, and she's saying she thinks Hydra might be creeping back into the government, even SHIELD. I don't know what to do in my professional life, or in my personal life. I don't—I don't have a purpose. I had a purpose with SHIELD, when I was working on the team, but after Uncle B—" A sob catches in her throat, and she swallows.

Steve rests a hand on hers. "I know," he says softly, and she steals a sideways glance: he has tears in his eyes as he looks out over the evening yard. "I miss him too, Sarah."

She scrubs a hand across her eyes. "I just want us to be all together, like when we were kids. Remember that road trip to the Grand Canyon?"

Her father smiles, lost in the memory. "Jamie got carsick and you were so mad you had to ride in the back. We stopped at that gas station in New Mexico and you both bought those itchy, awful woven ponchos, and when we got to Arizona…"

"We watched the sun come up over the canyon," she reminisces. "Everything was gold and orange and red, like a painting. It was so beautiful that Mom got all choked up and had to walk into a park restroom to compose herself. And we were together, all four of us. I don't—I don't want things to change. I didn't want them to change then, either."

"The world moves on, sweetie," Steve says softly. "You gotta figure out if you're gonna move with it or keep your face turned behind you all the time. You're gonna be an aunt, and our family'll get bigger and bigger with time. And that's okay. It's okay to look back, and it's okay that things go on."

"You once told me you knew things that were going to happen. Some things. Do I—"

"Honey," he interrupts gently, "I don't know a thing about what's going to happen to you or your brother. And that's how it should be. No parent needs to know every last little thing about their kids. But I'll bet you that both of you are going to be just fine."

"Are you going to leave again?" Sarah asks, forcing herself to keep her voice steady.

Steve leans back, sighing as he settles on the step. "Oh, not for a good long time, I don't think," he muses. "I have some things to do in the next year or so, but I'll be around. You can always call if you need me."

 _I'll always need you. You're my dad,_ she wants to cry, but she's a grown woman and that's silly, isn't it? "Okay. Call me, too, if you need anything. I love you, Dad."

He wraps one arm around her shoulders tightly, and they both sit there, waiting for time to flow past them as the sun sets over the Massachusetts trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N-n-n-otes!  
> -I'm so sorry,but I have bronchitis and my energy is GONE, so there will be no translations in this bit. The Russian is fairly easy to work out from context, and the Xhosa can be popped into google translate.  
> -this chapter is over 10k words and I Am Sorry  
> -I'm still outlining the few remaining chapters! I should have the plot all wrapped up and done by the end of this month, in the event I don't catch the flu, for it to be posted monthly and MAYBE done by early next year.


	34. April 15, 1990

"No, no, Emily's doing fine," says James frantically into the telephone bolted to the wall of the Labor and Delivery ward at Walter Reed. "Yes, Mom, I know it's been a while. Yeah, there's—"

" _ James Rogers, _ " screams a very loud voice from down the hallway, " _ if you don't get your ass in here I'm going to kill you!" _

"I  gotta  go, Mom, bye,  _ bye, _ " James spits, and races back down the hallway, skidding into a nurse and stopping dead in his tracks at the sight of his wife with her feet in stirrups, red-faced and grunting with strands of mousy hair stuck to her cheeks. "You're doing great,  Em !"

"Shut up!" she screams, teeth bared. "And don't tell me to breathe!"

"They all do this, don't worry," says a doctor, who's crouching between Emily's legs garbed in plastic. Her hair is yanked back in a  scrunchie , leaving her middle-aged face looking starkly lined. "Okay, Mrs. Rogers, go ahead and push for me."

James watches in shock as the space between  Em's  thighs, swollen to the size of his fist, starts bulging and moving, and then he sees a  _ head: _  a round head with a sparse fluff of hair  smushed  down in blood and vernix. "Holy Jesus," he mutters.

"Head presenting!" One of the two nurses holding Emily's hands  smiles at James and flashes him a thumbs-up.

"Oh, God," he says, and then things go a little fuzzy and when he opens his eyes again he's slouched in a chair  and his child is shooting into the world,  purple-blue,  limp and smeared in blood. One of the doctors picks up the infant (a boy,  just like the ultrasound said,  James notes absently) and rubs his tiny feet. No sound emerges, and another nurse peers over and does something to the face.

"What—what's wrong?" Emily's struggling to  sit up, blinking and sweaty. "He—why isn't he  crying?"

"I don't—" James looks from the doctors to his wife, and quickly makes his way over to her. "I'm sure he's fine," he says, smoothing her wet hair back from her face. "He's fine. Sometimes it takes time. He's fine."

"A boy." Emily looks confused.  "He's not crying. If he's not crying he's not breathing—" 

"No grimace response," one of the doctors mutters. 

"He was healthy," Emily's insisting, looking from the nurses to James.  Panic begins to fill her voice.  "He was fine. Every scan we did, he was  _ fine _ —"

The doctor holding their boy  cuts the cord  unceremoniously  and  rushes to the side of the room, and James can hear the soft, panicked conversation about there being no pulse, and that's when they start CPR and call a code blue and a code white over the intercom.

" Em ," he says quietly, and she looks right at him with those big brown eyes he loves so, so much, her lower lip trembling. " Em , we're going to be okay."

"Oh, my God," she whimpers, and bursts into tears as the female doctor  with the  scrunchie keeps saying they'll do e verything they can, but something's gone wrong, and they'll have more answers later.

Later never comes.

 

* * *

 

Their son is wrapped tightly in a white blanket and handed with the utmost care over to his mother, who cradles him in the recovery room and gently, gently touches the tiny eyes that never opened, the tiny mouth that never took in a breath, the waxy little nose. 

_ Something hadn't gone right _  is all the explanation that the doctors can give them. Sometimes, people just aren't compatible, or two parents can carry some deadly disease or genetic defect or illness  that isn't caught until birth , says the consultant. For whatever reason, their son had not been  genetically  compatible with life outside the womb, and that was simply all. James Rogers stares blindly at his wife cradling the body of the boy who was supposed to be going home into the brand-new nursery she'd finished a month ago, and all he can think is that it's his fault. What had they done in the old days? Gotten rid of everything, locked it in the attic, buried it in the yard, and never talked about it. He thinks maybe he'd like to never talk about this: he just wants to go home and hit something until the gaping hole of grief in his chest stops feeling like he's been blown apart from the inside out.

He doesn't even realize his parents have arrived until he feels his father's hand come down on his shoulder.  "Hey, Jamie," he says, so softly that it breaks James' heart all over again. There are no words to say, at least not any James can find to say, so he just lets himself be pulled into an embrace as he sobs his heart out on his dad's shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Emily's st ill clinging to her son's  body when James' mother sits down in the chair by the bed. She's always liked Peggy, but also remembers being a bit intimidated by the woman: she's very British and usually doesn't easily let on how she truly feels. This isn't one of those times , and right now it doesn't seem important in the least . Peggy's eyes are red with tears, and both her hands are clasped tightly in her lap. "I am so, so very sorry, Emily," she whispers. 

Emily shakes her head,  fresh  tears dripping down her cheeks. "I should have—it was me, I didn't do something right—"

"Oh, my darling, you did everything  perfectly," Peggy assures her, wiping her cheeks with a handkerchief as if Emily is her own daughter. "And for that matter, so did James. Sometimes  these sorts of  things just happen , and there's nothing you can do about it ."

"The—the doctors s aid something was wrong with the —our  genetic  compatibility," says Emily, forcing the words out. "Like I'm not …  right for him." The stunned look on Peggy's face at that revelation is enough to hook her away from the tiny form in her arms and press on. "Does James—I know he's, you know, I know Steve is—is there something—"

"I lost a child, too," says Peggy, gone pale at the lips. "Very early on. Before—before I had Jamie. I wasn't—I couldn't carry Steve's children. At. At that time."

"Why—how did you—"

"May I look at him?" requests Peggy rather quickly, still looking shaken. 

Emily doesn't want to let go of the little bundle, but nods anyway, handing the swaddled body over to Peggy. She cradles him as if he was a real, living child. "We were going to name him Michael," she whispers. "Michael Steven. My—my dad's name was Michael."

Peggy's whiskey-colored eyes are brimming with tears. "A good strong name," she whispers, tracing the gray little face with a finger. "Michael Steven Rogers.  What a boy he would have been. "

The sucking grief is replaced, strangely, by a sense of purpose and plain old determination. Emily isn't and has never been the type to fixate, but rather to get things done: she suspects that's why James married her. "We'll cremate him, and—and we'll spread the ashes on the farm. That way he can be in the field, and the trees, and the fireflies in the summer. " She's crying again, and she doesn't know why. "And he can—he can watch the sun coming up, over the ridge."

"You're very lucky," Peggy whispers, her throat choked up as she carefully hands the bundle back to Emily. "You got to hold him, and say goodbye."

Emily bursts into  tears, clinging to baby Michael, and Peggy holds her tight, sitting on the bed until the tears abate.

 

* * *

 

"It's my fault," says Peggy, white as salt and stricken as she sits in the living room of James and Emily's home in Brooklyn. Emily has been put to bed, James is outside on the back patio, and Steve sits across from his wife, both his hands clasped together around a mug of coffee. "I  didn't even think. I  ought to have said something.  A twenty-five percent chance that Emily can give birth to a live, healthy child is  just —i t' s—"

"It's not fair," Steve whispers. "God. I hadn't even considered the serum affecting our kids, or their kids."

"I should have told Jamie," whispers Peggy, wiping her eyes again with a damp hankie. "It's not as if the government just has super-soldier serum lying around for the sole use of giving to our children's spouses, for God' s sake."

"The doctors mentioned that the baby had an abnormal amount of muscle tone for a newborn," Steve says softly. "Imagine being pregnant with a super-baby and not being able to handle it."

"Emily did say he kicked hard enough to bruise her from the inside out," Peggy mutters, and places a hand on her long-empty belly, eyes distant. "It's really a miracle he lived to be born at all, or that Emily wasn't hurt."

"She have any extended family?"

"No. Her mother's not in the picture at all, and her father died when she was twelve. She was raised by her grandmother, who passed away right after the wedding, if you remember." Peggy shakes her head. "Poor girl."

Steve heaves himself forward. "I should go talk to James again. Just give him a heads-up about…all of this."

"Don't badger him, for heaven's sake. He needs to process it all."

"I won't," Steve promises, before heading to the back door through the kitchen and letting it swing shut behind him.

James is hunched on the back step, the unmistakable glow of a cigarette floating before his face. He looks up at his father in the yellow glow of the  street light, then looks down, eyes red-rimmed with smoke and tears. "I figured what's the harm?" he mutters. "Not like it'll do anything to me, and Emily's inside. We were being… so careful. So. Why not just smoke."

Steve sits down, removes the cigarette from his son's hands, and stubs it out. "Jamie," he says gently. "You're not the only man who's ever lost a child."

"Yeah, well, it sure feels like it." James drags a hand down his face. "How am I supposed to try for another one? You know the doctors said we had a one in four chance of carrying a healthy baby to term? One in four. I can't do this two more times."

"Well, your mom and I did it," Steve tells him.

There's a silence, and James turns after a moment, blinking. "You. And Mom."

"Yeah. When we were married, uh, we thought we couldn't have kids. I had—well, the strength, the serum, and she didn't."

"And… you lost…"

"At least one. Maybe more. Probably more. We didn't know about any of them until the last one, because a medical test caught it  right  as she was losing it." Talking about it brings all the sadness and grief to the surface again, and Steve finds himself lost for a moment. "She… your mom pushed me away for a while. Didn't want to come near me, blamed herself. But we reconciled, we talked, and—and then we had you."

"But that's the difference," says James bleakly. "You didn't even know. You weren't—you didn't have a name, you didn't have a nursery."

Steve shakes his head. "No. We didn't. But that didn't make it hurt any less."

"And Mom only got pregnant after she got that serum, and it's all gone now. Or if it's not, there's no way we could get our hands on any."  James wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. 

"Your chances are better than ours were, though," Steve tries to reassure him. "You have a one in four chance. Before your mom got her serum, the doctors told us it was impossible. No chance at all. And you have modern medicine, nothing like the stuff we had in the fifties."

"I don't even know how Emily's gonna handle this," James confesses, tears in his eyes. "The movies all have, you know, women staring out of the windows in a ratty old robe and crying for months."

"Well,  you  oughta  know you can't trust movies. Your mom went into cleaning and cooking mode. Never seen a thing like it. I think I could have eaten off the floor."

" So what—how do I help her?"

Steve rests a hand on his son's shoulder. "You be there for her. You be adaptable and you talk about it when she's ready, and when you're ready, and you'll get through it together."

"I don't want to get through it," James says. "I want to remember my  _ son _ , I don't want to forget him, because that's like—it's like not caring that he existed. And I want to care, Dad. I want to  _ care. _ " His voice breaks into a sob, and he leans forward, head on his arms.

Steve rubs his back. "You will. You think I don't care about the ones we lost? They live in the back of my mind, and I think about them when it's quiet. Wondering what we would have named them, wondering if maybe one of ' em  would have been a blond girl who looked like my ma, or maybe a boy who would have been the spitting image of your mom's dad. But we'll never know for sure. And we have you two, and I can't always be looking back at what  _ might  _ have been over the heads of my real, living kids."

"When's it gonna stop hurting?" James asks brokenly, raising his head. 

"Only time will tell. But it won't hurt like this forever. I promise you that." Steve kisses his son's head and hugs him tight again. "Now. You get yourself together, fan the damn smoke out of your clothes, and go inside to your wife and you do what she needs you to do."

He nods shakily. "I want to talk to Mom, later. Not now."

"I know. And Sarah's coming down, I promise. She wanted to kno w if she'd be a bother or not. We're all here for you."

"Thanks, Dad," he whispers, and stands, stubbing out his cigarette and shaking out his jacket before going inside, the screen door swinging shut.

Steve doesn't move for a while, still as a statue on the back steps as the streetlights bear down and the sounds of the city drone on in the distance.

 

* * *

 

The enormous domes of the Kremlin, painted  in their scarlets and gol ds and greens and blues, rise above the Red Square like fantastical balloons above the milling crowds on the ground. It's a lovely  spring day, the Soviet Union has fallen, and  a woman is looking up, breathing in the fresh new air of a free Russia. 

She turns and walks away from the Red Square, her baseball cap tight over her brows, hiding her face as she shoulders her way down a side street. From time to time, she checks her watch as she goes, and looks at the street signs. To an ordinary passersby, nothing would be out of the ordinary; to someone watching carefully, it's clear she's looking for something—or someone.

As she steps past an old, crumbling gar age, she's yanked violently to the side, into the shadows of the concrete and rebar. It's so fast that anyone watching might  have seen only a flicker of red hair, and a flash of silver.

 

* * *

 

"Natalia," says a voice she loathes, loathes most in the world. "Welcome home."

The hood is ripped away, and Natasha star es up balefully at the ice-still  face of Yelena Belova. She spits blood from her split lip onto the cold concrete. "This is not my home," she says as frostily as she can. The two fatigue-clad men behind her have her forced to her knees, and out of the corner of her eye she sees—

_ Him. _

" _ Soldat _ _ , _ " she whispers, half-afraid to breathe. He doesn't respond or even look at her, simply takes his place by Yelena's side, waiting for orders. "What have they done to you?" He looks…  as if he hasn't aged, as if he's  _ younger _ , if that's possible: being  cryo - frozen for months at a time must have stopped his aging. She can't think. How long has it been since she was frozen? Two decades? More? And yet, she has hardly aged at all, like Yelena, who leans forward, her near-flawless face wrinkled into a sneer.

"You traitor," she snarls. "You left your sisters. You left your  _ place. _ "

Natasha lunges up, and takes a wild bet: the two soldiers holding her are both Russian, and likely don't speak Chinese, but she knows Yelena speaks twelve languages,  just  like herself. " _ Nǐ _ __ _ nǚ'ér _ __ _ hái _ __ _ huózhe _ ," she gasps, inches from Belova's face.

The woman blinks, and for a fleeting second doubt scuds across her face like a cloud over the sun. " _ Nǐ _ __ _ xiǎng _ __ _ fēnsàn _ __ _ wǒ _ _  de  _ _ zhùyì _ __ _ lì _ _.  _ _ Zhè _ __ _ shìgè _ __ _ huǎngyán _ _. _ "

Nat shakes her head frantically. " _ Zhè _ __ _ bùshì _ __ _ huǎngyán _ . "

Yelena looks furious now. " _ Wǒ _ __ _ méiyǒu _ __ _ háizi _ __ _ wǒ _ __ _ hěn _ __ _ pínjí _ _! _ " She looks up at the two soldiers. "Take her to the chair  _ now. _  I will hear no more of this. Wipe her. I want a message sent to  Karpov  that we have the Bla ck Widow back in our possession."

"The Black Widow," says the Soldier, looking as if he's waking up from a long, strange sleep. "No…"

Yelena turns and belt s him across the face, hard enough to bruise . "You  _ will _  obey,  _ Soldat _ ."

He shifts slightly, still looking only faintly confused, as if the blow had only been wind. "But…"

"Don't  _ touch him _ ," Natasha spits, furiously struggling as the two soldiers drag her upright, her feet skidding along the cold concrete floor. "Don't you  _ touch him _ , Yelena."

His eyes find hers as she's turned at the end of the hall, and before the hood goes back on, she sees blue eyes, and hears him ask, "Nat…?" before she's pulled backward through doors she cannot see, and put into the chair, and blinding light and pain sears through her mind again, wiping her clean of all she ever was.

 

* * *

 

_ November, 1991 _

The phone rings at Peggy's desk, and she picks up automatically. "Director Carter."

" _ Peggy. Listen. I think we've cracked it. I think we've really finally cracked it." _

"Howard?" She stands up, confused for a moment. "Cracked what? What are you—"

" _ The formula. The serum. Erskine's serum." _  Howard is so excited, he's practically vibrating. " _ We still have to iron out some wrinkles, but I thought—I thought you'd like to be the first to know, since, uh _ _ , your kids…you know." _

"Oh, my God," says  Peggy, and sinks into her chair. "You mean—fifty years, and you've—you've got it? You really do?"

_" _P_ reliminary tests are showing the results are absolutely identical to Erskine's. Being monitored closely, but if we don't see any deviation in a few more weeks with these lab mice I'm personally driving down to the Pent_ _ agon with the formula. I know your son and your daughter-in-law have separated amiably, but, um, if they ever want to get back together again, you know—there could be a solution. And, hey, there's also a chance for your daughter and her fiancé." _

Tears, unexpected and strange, fill Peggy's eyes. "You mean to tell me you sat down and cracked this because you thought I might not have grandchildren?"

_" That was maybe forty percent of the driving force. The other sixty was a lot of pressure from the State Department. Anyway. You tell Sarah and James that their Uncle Howard has their back."_

Peggy smiles, tears in her eyes. "I'll do just that. Thank you, Howard."

 

* * *

 

Steve is sitting at his easel on the family farm. Thanksgiving is rolling around again, and this year he's gone early to try and make the whole thing as stress-free as possible. He finds himself doing it more and more often these days, not really out of any desire to create, but because he finds it to be an excellent outlet for emotions now that he can't exactly use a punching bag much anymore. His pelvis has never  really been the same since Cuba, and now his shoulders have started to wear out, but he guesses that' s to be expected at some point. There's only so much the serum can do to bar the passing of time, but he's had over fifty years to come to terms with that. Sarah and Jack have been by a couple of times, Sarah mostly, after they'd gotten the intel that Natasha had been retaken by—well, no one seemed clear on who exactly had taken her, if it was Hydra or t he fractured KGB or the Widows, but she was gone for good for now, and he'd been so torn up over his inability to do a damn thing that he'd retreated back to the farm for a solid six months. 

James… James had gone back to New York after he and Emily's third loss, and Steve didn't have the slightest idea what he was up to. He had tried to call, but the first two times had resulted in an endlessly ringing phone (James wouldn't get an answering machine) and the subsequent calls had not gone through, indicating that his phone was disconnected or off the hook. Peggy had looked into it, and assured Steve that he was not in any serious kind of trouble, but that didn't stop him from worrying. Emily had withdrawn from the family, but still called Peggy every once in a while. She'd invited her to Thanksgiving dinner on the farm. Steve didn't know if she was coming or not.

Conce rned about her own future plans in light of all the issues with James and Emily,  Sarah had made her relationship with Jack a more on-again, off-again sort of thing, and bless him, Jack had seemed to be completely understanding—and so had his mother, who dropped by at least every month at the farm, Peggy's house in D.C., and Sarah's apartment like clockwork with casseroles, seemingly determined to make everything turn out all right with the power of Midw estern cooking and conversation—and sometimes, it actually seemed like it all might work out, over a Crock-Pot roast and potatoes with thyme and rosemary and butter, because Marie Brown's cooking made even the worst of prospects seem glowing. 

The phone rings, startling Steve into almost knocking over a jar of water on his easel. "Damn," he mutters, and makes his way through the house to the kitchen. "Hello?" he asks, cradling the receiver under his chin.

" _ Dad?" _

"Jamie?" Steve almost drops the receiver. "Where—where in the hell are you?"

" _ New York." _  He sounds exhausted. " _ Don't worry. I'm not doing anything stupid. Nothing you wouldn't approve of. Just…tell Emily I love her, okay? I still love her." _

"She still loves you, too, son." Steve shifts the receiver to listen more closely. "She calls Mom sometimes. It's not either of your faults it didn't work out."

" _ I know, Dad. I know that. Just tell her, okay? And Sarah, too." _

Steve frowns. "You tell her yourself when you see her next."

James sounds vaguely exasperated. " _ I…I won't be able to make contact for a while. I'm doing something. Can't talk about it on the phone, not really." _

"Okay. I love you, kid. Stay safe."

_ "I know. Love you too, Dad." _   The phone clicks into static dead air, and Steve stares at the receiver, then immediately dials Peggy, while making a mental list of the next people to call: Emily, then Sarah. 

What he wouldn't give for a damn iPhone and a group messaging app. _  Just another decade and a half or so. _

 

* * *

 

Sarah jerks upright in bed, the phone ringing in the living room. "Jesus," she pants, wiping sweat off her face, "that’s probably Mom."

Jack Brown sits up, blinking hazily at the sight of his girlfriend's nude ass bouncing off toward the door. "Hey," he protests. "We're not done yet."

"Hold on, hold on, sorry: it's just—" Sarah picks up, thankful for the closed drapes and the blanket draped over the back of the couch , which she presses to her chest . "Hello?"

" _ Sarah-bear?" _

"Daddy?" She instinctively clutches the blanket tighter around her chest. "What's wrong?"

" _ I just got a weird call from your brother, is all. Said he was getting into something and wouldn't be able to make contact for some time. You haven't gotten a call or anything from him lately, have you?" _

She frowns.  "Not since my birthday. Did you call Mom?"

" _ Yeah. She said he's been doing some red undercover  _ _ ops _ _  in, uh, Hong Kong." _

Sarah grins. They both know her line isn't secure, and they have a code:  _ red  _ means the Big Apple, which means Hong Kong, a place name, is  stand-in for a place in New York that's got the same first letters: HK. Hell's Kitchen. "Gross. He  oughta  have stayed in Brooklyn. That's way too far across the water."

Dad chuckles on the other end of the line. " _ You hear anything weird, you let me know. How's Jack?" _

"He's, um…" Sarah turns a little, eyes flickering up to take in every single inch of Jack Brown's body as he leans in the doorway. Every inch, without a stitch.  "He's doing very well."

" _ Good. Your mom—your mom misses him _ _  coming over _ _. You guys are good together. He's a good guy."  _ Dad almost sound kind of choked up. " _ I  _ _ gotta _ _  go, honey. Love you." _

"Love you too. Bye." She hangs up. "What the heck was  _ that _  about?"

"What?" Jack comes closer, then drops to one knee, nibbling gently at the bullet scar on her thigh. 

"He just seemed kind of out of sorts. You know. Hey." Sarah swats at Jack's head lightly. "Cut that out."

Jack's mouth moves closer to her hip. "It's eight in the evening. What are we supposed to do, watch the news?" 

" Mmm . No. My brother's in New York doing God knows what, and— _ Jesus, _  Jack." She squirms under his mouth. "Can I at least get back to the bedroom?"

He lifts his head. "Too late," he says huskily. "C'mon. Legs open for me."

"You've gotten cocky since we started back up," she mutters, scooting up to the couch and opening her thighs as he moves in. "Maybe I want the old polite Jack back. The guy who—ooh—never set a foot wrong and—ah, only, only ever did what I  _ uh _  what I asked him to  _ do _ —"

Jack just hums, his mouth otherwise occupied, and Sarah relaxes into the scratchy couch, surrendering to a little slice of heaven for a while.

 

* * *

 

Thanksgiving is rainy and gloomy that year, and Steve pulls his wife aside for a moment in the kitchen  under pretense of turkey-checking  while Emily  (who did show up, after all)  and Sarah  chat with Mrs. Brown and Jack in the living room. 

"I'll be quick," he says softly. "I haven't told Sarah about the serum. You shouldn't tell Emily. Or James."

Peggy eyes him  strangely. "What do you mean? I've already told Emily. Not James, as nobody can get in touch with him, but—"

" Just trust me on this," says Steve. "Please, Peggy."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Peggy asks, eyes narrowed. "And has it anything to do with how you almost choked over the telephone when I told you Howard nearly had the serum ready?"

"I don't know," he confesses. "I don't—I don't know. But to be safe. Just wait until after—after December  sixteenth  to tell Sarah."

"What on earth i s supposed to happen on the six teenth of December?"

Steve shakes his head in frustration. "If I tell you, it might happen anyway. I don't know, Peggy. " He scrubs a hand across his cheeks. " If I say anything, could I stop it? And if I stop it, does that change—change so many things about the future? For better? Worse? I don't know!"

There's a silence. "You still have no idea if we're in an  _ alternate _  timeline, do you?" asks Peggy, stunned. "Or if—if we're in the real one, the proper one."

"I's not—it's not like I lived through the first one,  either, hon ," he says miserably. "I only know what I was told, and that—that picture, that whole thing is fragmented and one-sided."

Peggy exhales very softly, looking at the cabinets. " All right. The six teenth. But I'm telling her the moment it's the  seventeenth ."

"Thank you," Steve says gently, and kisses her on the cheek. 

 

* * *

 

_ December 2, 1991 _

James Rogers can remember when all he ever wanted to do was walk with growing, living things and be a nurturing force for good: to not destroy, to not tear up. And maybe there's still some part of him that  wants that, deep inside, but right now it's shoved down deep and buried with his three children that never took a breath, with his marriage, with his—

_ Crack _ , goes another blow to the face, and he spits blood and looks up into the face of Alo nzo  Manfredi . "You done yet?" James asks, grinning  through the bruising. " 'Cause  I got all damn day."

"You," snarls the gangster, yanking James upright by the collar of his battered old tactical suit, "are a fucking pain in my ass, Rogers."

"Runs in the family. Can't help it."

Manfredi  throws him away with a disgusted noise. He's a big guy, late thirties, maybe, over six feet, with his father's nose and black hair. "You know what I do to guys who snoop around my shit?"

"You go ahead and put a bullet in me," says James, drooling blood onto the concrete floor of the warehouse. "Do it. I'm tired. But if you're gonna monologue, then you tell me everything you know about  what the Russians want , and I know you know  somethin ', because you were seen with a known Soviet ex-op."

"What?"  Manfredi  is taken aback. "You mean—Lila?"

"The blonde  on your arm all the time ? Yeah. Her name's actually Irena, and  she's a specialized agent of the KGB .  She's also a natural brunette.  Sorry, pal."

"You're  lyin '." Alonzo steps back, and James isn't sure if he's more shocked at the revelation about the hair color or the KGB part.

James lifts himself up painfully. "She had a scar on her wrist, didn't she? It's from—handcuffs. They chain ' em  to their beds during training."

"Ho-lee shit," says  Manfredi , looking stricken. "I took her to the opera. I—I took her to meet my  _ mother. _ "

"I'm sorry, Alonzo. I really am. But I  gotta  know.  Has she said anything weird? "

"Why the hell  d'you —why are you poking around Russian shit? The Communists are gone,  ain't  they? Soviet Union's gone, Russia's all together again."  Manfredi still looks stunned, and so do his goons.

"Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it?" mutters James.  He raises himself up to one knee, and distantly hopes it's not shattered. That  big redheaded thug  with the crowbar had not been very careful. 

Manfredi  stepped forward.  "She never—she mentioned once, maybe, something weird about Howard Stark, now that I think about it."  He frowned. "Hold on. You mean you were nosing around my boats and my men  and my contacts for weeks  just to wa r n me I was  sleepin ' with  a Russian spy?"

"Yup," says James, feeling his ribs. Something is absolutely broken. "What did she say about Stark?"

"I…let me think. We were  layin ' in bed, and she goes, ' Lonzo , if Howard Stark's ever in the neighborhood, you ought to let me know.' Thought it was odd, seeing as how Stark sold his penthouse  a month or so ago."  Manf r edi  gives James another funny look. "Were you telling me  a minute ago  to  _ shoot _  you?"

"Might've been." James stands, his lungs  kinda  crackling. "I better—I  gotta  go. Good talk."

Manfredi  shakes his head. "You  ain't  going nowhere. I'll have a guy drive you to the hospital."

"That  ain't  necessary."

Alonzo rolls his eyes. "You got beat to shit by Big Mikey. Big Mikey's killed guys before. He's my guy who kills guys.  Ain't  that right, Big Mikey?"

The red-headed, freckled guy standing at the door looks guilty. "That's right, boss."

Manfredi  nods as if that makes it  final  and turns back to James .  "So I'll have Stan drive you to the hospital, and  get you checked out, and I'll pay your costs. Jesus, buddy.  Next time just call me. Big Mikey, give him my card when you get a chance." James accepts the big, meaty hand offered to him and hauls himself painfully up. "Interesting getup you got,"  Manfredi notes, glancing at the battered, well-worn tactical suit. 

"Old uniform," James tells him, hobbling to the gleaming black town car that pulls up to the curb. "You have a good night, Alonzo."

"You too, Rogers, and for fuck's sake, don't get yourself killed  doin ' anything stupid."

* * *

Released from the hospital, James limps up to his cheap apartment, chain-locking the door before making his way to the dingy bathroom  and stripping off his undershirt with enough care to not mess up the stitches on his cheek or the splint on his arm.  It should all heal in a week or so, but for now, better safe than sorry.

His reflection looks like a stranger. Both cheeks are hollow, gaunt with exhaustion, the result of physically driving himself to the brink that can't be masked even by the scraggly beard: his left e ye is bruised and still swollen, his chest and arms stained with dried blood and sweat and dirt.  The hair plastered to his face is shaggy and unkempt,  and  he thinks for a brief, painful moment of what Emily would think if she could see him now. After that, there's relief that she's not there , followed by another wave of grief. It tends to come in swells, now, instead of there being one endless flood of unbearable  agony. He guesses maybe that's some comfort. At least he can get his head above the water half the time.

Manfredi's business card is stuck between the glass and the frame of his mirror. It's plain and expensive-looking cardstock, with only a phone number printed on it. James picks up a washcloth, wets it, soaps it up, and tries to scrub himself painfully with his good hand, gasping a little as his ribs twinge. Alonzo wasn't too bad. Maybe he needed a bodyguard. he could work as a bodyguard.  _ Jesus, _  he thought,  _ what are you thinking? You're Captain America's kid, and you're gonna hire out to the mob?   _ Sarah would beat his ass for even thinking about it. He can almost hear her indignation, her whole speech about the morals of it and how they had to at least try to live up to the ideals their father had set out as a goal for the whole world. 

She's everything like their father. James is nothing like their father. Or at least he tries to think so: sometimes, when he looks into the grimy mirror, he catches a glimpse of a man he remembers dimly in his memories, a man who tucked him into bed and read him books and made him dinner. His father's face, ghosting over his own, forever present:  _ here I am, _  it seems to say. James has his mother's eyes, brown and big and delicately-lashed; he shares his cheekbones with Sarah, his hair, his brows and lips and chin with his father.  _ On my face, we'll all be together for Christmas. _

There's a tap at the door, and he freezes, reaching immediately for his knife. Nobody good can be poking around this late at night, and he heads to the front door, checking to see that his sidearm is still on the coffee table by the door as he wedges an elbow against the frame. "What?" he barks through the door, raising the knife.

"James?" asks a shaky voice on the other side. "I know it's late, but—"

James almost tears the door off its hinges, splint be damned, and stares into the face of his ex-wife—not ex, they hadn't legally divorced—estranged wife? " Em ," he says, hoarse. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, my _God_ ," says Emily, staring at him. There's not a single atom of disgust in her green eyes, only compassion, and he remembers with startling clarity why he'd fallen in love with her in the first place. "Jamie. Honey. What have you been doing?" She's dressed in a brown sweater, a knee-length skirt, boots, and a large coat, and he thinks he's never seen her look so—

"How did you get my address?" he demands, not exactly dragging her inside, but not being super gentle about it either as he yanks her in and bolts the door. 

"Your mom gave it to me," she says, looking around, and it's like her presence is a lens: suddenly he sees the streaky walls, the shitty furniture, the dirty floor, the cracks, the broken plaster. "You… you're staying here?"

"I live here," he says, and shoulders past her, furious and hurt that Mom would even  _ think _  about giving out his address to Emily. 

"What do you have in the fridge?" she asks.

James swallows , knowing she's not going to like the answer . "Gatorade."

"That's it? What the hell are you eating?" She crosses her arms .

"Takeout. Pizza. Whatever. Why are you  _ here?" _

She frowns. "Because I'm worried about you. Everyone is."

"Bullshit. They sent—my mom sent you here as some kind of—" Emotions threaten to choke him. "I'm not coming home. I can't. I can't be—a real husband to you. You know that." The next breath sends a shot of pain through his chest, and he grunts. “Just go home, Em,” he whispers. “Go home.”

She ignores him and sets her purse on the ratty sofa. “No. You look like hell. You need to go to the hospital, or—”

“I don’t  _ need anything,”  _ he spits, curling one hand around his aching ribs. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m not  gonna  do that,” she says firmly. “Sit down before you fall down.”

James gives up and collapses ungracefully into the scratchy material. He tells himself it’s only because he’s tired and his vision is going a little fuzzy, not because he’s actually going to entertain the idea of Emily in his apartment. “Why are you really here?”

“Because we need to talk.” She crosses to the kitchen and turns on the tap, and he can hear water running. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Around the last time I slept,” he mutters, looking away from her. 

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say that your day job has turned into some vigilante, rooftop lurking bullshit,” says Emily, coming toward him with a wet washcloth. “Hold still. You have dried blood on your face.”

“I thought I got it all off,” he says, and shuts his eyes, unwilling to even look at her as she gently wipes his face clean and takes the cloth back to the kitchen. “Em. Leave. The mafia is probably watching this place. You’re not safe—”

“Oh, can it,” she says sharply, marching back into the room. “ _ You’re _  not safe. Are you aware your mom thinks you might be a Hydra target?”

That’s new. “No. What?”

“Yeah. I saw a memo on her desk at work.”

“Why the hell were you at SHIELD?”

Emily glares at him. “They wanted the opinion of an environmental expert on some project they’re working on. Peggy asked me to come in personally. That’s not relevant to the matter of why you’re holed up in a nasty apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.”

Tears spring to his eyes, completely unwanted. “You agreed,” he manages. “You agreed to separate. You didn’t even  _ fight  _ me for it.”

“ Of course  I didn’t fight you for it. You wanted to go. You said you couldn’t cause me any more heartbreak and I should be with a man who could give me  _ children _ .” Emily’s eyes blaze with fury. “And it’s been a year, and now I understand that you think the only reason I—you thought I wanted  _ kids, _  any old kids, not  _ your kids _ , and I don’t. I don’t care, Jamie. I don’t care if we have twelve kids or none. I love  _ you _ .”

James sucks in a half-breath as if she’d slapped him. “You...you’re just saying that to get me to come home,” he chokes, lurching up out of the couch. “Don’t. Emily, don’t do this.”

“I am not,” she snaps, marching toward him. “What is  _ wrong _  with you?”

He sags against the wall, lightheaded. “If I just... told myself enough that you didn’t love me anymore,” he begins, his voice breaking. “It  woulda  been easier. Em. Don’t.”

“I love you,” she repeats, catching his shoulders in her hands. “I love you. I’ve loved you since that day you walked into my biology class and the teacher almost fell over himself to greet Captain America’s son, and you looked like you wanted to fall into a hole in the floor. What's happened to you?”

“Emily,” he sobs. Maybe he’s gone hysterical. He doesn’t know. This is like having something shoved into a too-small sucking wound in the center of his chest. “You have no idea. No idea.”

“ So  tell me,” she says, stroking his dirty,  shaggy hair  out of his face. 

“Sarah was always the strong one,” he weeps, shaking his head. “Not me. I only joined SHIELD because of—her, because she wanted to go, and I wanted to keep her safe. I killed people, Em. A lot of people.”

She looks visibly confused. “I know that.”

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t. You don’t know the particulars. It was ‘79, and we were assigned to go extract the ambassador to Afghanistan from this hotel—I don’t even remember the name—and Sarah, Sarah got shot. I went—I lost it.” His lips are trembling, he can feel them. “I killed twenty-nine people with my bare fucking hands, Emily. And I never—I never got over it. I wanted—” Dry, hoarse sobs start again: he must be dehydrated. “I wanted to live somewhere  _ green _ , somewhere full of life, and all I got was—killing, and death, and even when I left SHIELD that’s all I got, all I’m good for—”

There are tears in her eyes when she brings her face back to his, cupping his cheeks in her palms. “You can’t have life without death,” she whispers, “and you can’t have death without life. Remember the first law of conservation of matter?”

“Energy can’t be created or destroyed,” says James, face crumpling. “Just transferred. Even  matter  can’t be destroyed, only changed.”

Emily strokes his cheeks with her thumbs. “Everything you’ve done brought someone life. Everything. And I’m going to tell you that for the rest of your life, even if you don’t want to hear it.”

“ Em ,” he chokes, and yanks her close, his good arm tight across her back, his face buried in her soft hair, and he begins to cry. 

Emily Rogers lets her husband collapse to his knees, burying his face in her sweater, and strokes his head in the middle of the dingy room.  _ Come home, come home _ , whispers her heart.  _ Come home to me. _

 

* * *

 

_ December 17, 1991 _

Peggy Carter is woken out of a sound sleep by knocking on her door, and belatedly realizes that it’s still dark, the dim winter morning hardly lighting anything in her bedroom as she makes her way to the front hall. On the stoop are two black-suited men, a black car waiting, and she realizes that one is from the CIA—she knows him, she’s seen him before. “Gentlemen?” she asks, tying her robe tightly about her waist. Fear coils in her gut as two more men get out of the car, both wearing dark clothing and somber looks: this is—this can’t be what she thinks it is. She’s vividly reminded of Michael: the day that the officers had come and told her parents, how she’d watched from upstairs in her wedding dress and sobbed.  _ Who is it? _  she wants to scream. Sarah? James?  _ Steve? _

“Director Carter,” says one of them, flashing his badge: he’s DHS. What is going  _ on? _  "It falls upon us to inform you that Howard Stark has died in a car accident.”

Her mind shuts down for a moment, the earth reeling under her feet as the enormity of what this man has just said sinks into her mind:  _ Howard. Howard.  _ It has to be a joke; some sick prank.  “You can’t be serious,” she says. “Why--why would you come and tell  _ me, _  I’m not family, he has a wife and a son and—”

“Mrs. Stark was killed in the same crash,” says one of the men, flashing his badge: SHIELD and the familiar crest centers her slightly. “Your name was on his paperwork: in the event of an accident, he wanted you to be informed and treated like family, and he made you the executor of his estate.”

Tears swell up in her eyes, dripping down her cheeks: she sucks in a breath and braces herself against the doorframe as one of the men reaches for her to support her. “No, don’t. I’m all right,” she insists faintly, dragging herself back up. “How...where was he killed?”

“Long Island.” The agent looks stricken himself, and swallows. “It appears they blew a tire and veered off the road. Hit a tree. Both dead on impact. I’m so sorry, Director.”

“Blew a tire,” Peggy repeats, numbly. That didn’t make sense: Howard personally checked every single vehicle he owned regularly, especially ones he was about to drive: how could a brilliant engineer have missed a weak tire?  _ Howard and Maria. Gone. Anthony is an orphan. He’s only—he's only—twenty-one. I have to call Steve. I have to... _

A sudden realization breaks over her, shock and horror, and she pulls it to the back of her mind quickly so she can deal with the men in front of her,  _ compartmentalize, get it over with, get it done.  _ An envelope with a letter inside is handed off to her, goodbyes are said, her door is shut, and she marches to the phone in the kitchen immediately, dialing Steve’s number. He'd be at the farm, getting ready for Christmas with Sarah and James and Emily. She waits. The phone rings twice, and Steve, who doesn’t sound sleepy at all, picks up. 

_ “Hello?” _

“Tell me you didn’t know,” Peggy whispers into the phone, slumping to the wall. “Tell me, Steve.”

There is no answer on the other end, and then a very soft, gentle, long sigh punctuates the faint static.  _ “Howard and Maria.” _

She’s so angry that she almost throws the phone. “You  _ knew! _  You knew and you didn’t  _ tell me?  _ He was my friend, Steve! My  _ friend,  _ and he’s dead because you didn’t warn a single bloody person in the whole world he was going to  _ die!”  _ Steve is silent, and Peggy begins to cry, her hands trembling, her whole body shaking because Howard is gone, Howard is  _ gone _ , and she’s lost SHIELD’s brightest mind and one of her best friends all in a single sweep. 

When her tears have stopped, leaving only a dull, empty heaviness in her belly, Steve speaks. “ _ I’m sorry, Peggy. I’m so sorry.”  _ And he does sound sorry, truly, but that doesn’t soothe her ragged emotions at all. 

“I do not—” Her words falter, cut  off.  “I cannot promise to be home for Christmas this year. I have to deal with—funeral planning, and Anthony, and the will. He named me as executor of his estate. Did you know that?” 

“ _ No,” _  he says, sounding pained.

“Well, he did. So you have a lovely Christmas with the children, Steve.” Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that Steve must have had his reasons for not telling her, but her rational mind doesn’t want to think about that: she wants to storm out and sob and grieve. “Give them my love.”

“ _ Wait. Peggy. James and Emily—they were going to tell you something important.” _  Steve sounds pained, almost desperate. “ _ At dinner.” _

Peggy leans so close to the receiver that she could have swallowed it. “Whatever it is, I—”

“ _ Emily’s missed her cycle. She’s going to take a test, but she thinks she might be...” _

More tears well up in Peggy’s eyes, and her shoulders slump, all the rage gone out of her. “You tell her I wish her all the best.” 

“ _ Peggy...” _  He sounds so lost and sad and tired that she almost gives in, almost says she’ll come to Christmas dinner, but she has responsibilities, work to do. “ _ I’m sorry. Please believe me.” _

“I do believe you,” she chokes. “I do. I—I will call you when I’ve got his affairs sorted. I have to go to New York.”

“ _ Okay, Peggy. I love you. The kids send their love.” _

She can’t help but think of her children, of Anthony, all alone in the world with only the  Jarvises as a guiding hand—and Ana is not well, hasn’t been for a few years. What is he going to do? “I love you, too. You tell them I love them with all my heart, Steve. Do that for me.”

“ _ I will. Bye, Peggy.” _

The receiver clicks, and the dial tone hums, and Peggy crosses to the chair at the table and begins to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I am SO SORRY I haven't updated in months. Life has been insane. My job has been a LOT and changed hours on me, I've had the outline for this planned out for a while, and then most of the end of the chapter right where James is reconciling with Emily and when Peggy finds out Howard has died got lost when I tried to port the document over to my new laptop, so I had to put myself back into Major Depressing Headspace and redo it which I just... did not want to do. So. Here we are. I AM SORRY. Still looking at maybe 37 chapters in total! I will not leave it unfinished!!


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